Artist Mimi Seery and historian Gearoid O’Brien warmly have extended an invitation to the local community to participate in an Art and Heritage workshop at Abbey Road Studios, Athlone, on May 3.
In the workshop, participants will be guided through the history of the former Workhouse building. They will be showing foodstuffs typical of the diets of the inmates, their workday, stories of the inmates and of kindly people.
Participants will then have the opportunity to create and decorate individual cairns as both a response to what has been learned and to honour those that occupied the building.
This immersive workshop is centred upon acknowledging the past through stories, group discussion and finally art making. Connecting with ancestors is difficult because they have now passed. However, by practicing traditional culture in the form of placing stones on cairns to honour the dead there is an opportunity to find a way to share a thought, a prayer or a blessing appropriate to past traditions and beliefs.
Art materials, snacks and refreshments will be provided, the Workshop being free to attend. Booking is essential as spaces are limited.
To register online go to www.eventbrite.ie and search - ‘I’ll put a Stone on your Cairn’ - or contact Mimi at [email protected]
This Workshop is supported by Westmeath County Council and Creative Ireland
