QUILTING THE RAINBOW
40+ Years of Queer Rights Activism in Cork
Photo: Barry Donnelly
(Creative Community participant)
A co-creative community project, in partnership with Cork’s Gay Project, inspired by the Irish Names AIDS Memorial Quilt which will be visiting Cork in December 2024
Quilting the Rainbow is supported through Cork City Council by the Creative Ireland Programme, an all-of-government five-year initiative, from 2023 to 2027, which places creativity at the centre of public policy. Further information from creativeireland.gov.ie
Photo: Barry Donnelly
Workshops
20 Creative Community Members
Brainstorming
Researching
Experimenting
Sharing Skills
Producing
Workshops are open to all members of Cork’s LGBTI+ community.
Arthur Leahy, founder of the Gay Project & Quay Co-op with Orla Egan, founder of the Cork LGBT Archive
Our first exhibition served as a means for us to gather material and input from the wider Cork community.
We decided to participate in Culture Night 2024, partnering with St. Peter’s Church (culture & heritage facility in Cork City) to achieve this.
We used this opportunity to develop collaborations with Cork LGBT Archive, Trans Pride Cork, Alternative Pride Cork and Act Up! Cork while presenting this exhibition and public participation event.
The exhibition was in 3 parts:
- Archival documents & film
- Our project in progress
- Pop-up workshop station for public participation
With 700 visitors on the day itself and over 1,960 throughout the week leading up to Culture Night, it was a roaring success!
Culture Night
One of two large scale paintings co-created by 700 visitors on Culture Night
Photo: Barry Donnelly
Textile Collage workshop
Now that we have established our flow and gathered important feedback from the wider Cork community, we have begun producing our main body of work.
We will be collaborating with curator Breda Lynch in delivering the production.
Exhibition
This project will be exhibited alongside the AIDS Memorial Quilt in Cork City for the first week of December.