SETU Foundation Day 2024: Connecting for Inclusion – Exhibition Opening

South East Technological University (SETU) is pleased to present SETU Foundation Day 2024: Connecting for Inclusion – an exhibition. The principal exhibition is entitled, ‘Aiteall – fine spell between two clouds’ showcasing the work of final-year Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Art students from SETU’s campus in Wexford. 

The exhibition will be on show in the centre’s Main Gallery from 16 May to 5 June 2024. Opening the exhibition on Thursday, 16 May, is renowned Irish poet and Pulitzer prize-winner, Paul Muldoon. 

During the last four years, the students of the Wexford Campus have developed, experimented, and honed their personal practices. This exhibition marks the start of each artist’s professional career, showcasing and celebrating their ongoing ability, dedication, and determination to create strong visual work exploring themes and issues at the very core of everyday life.

Through painting, drawing, photography, printmaking and sculpture, the exhibition examines challenging topics prevalent within contemporary society such as cultural identity, our relationship to nature, social memory, and history. Wider areas of research such as the intertwining of people and place, the social embodiment of memory and questions of justice and storytelling are also explored.​

Works furthermore convey the enjoyment that can result from engaging in creative processes while serving to integrate and touch upon the hidden activity of the subconscious, teasing out the layers of complexity within every-day social and personal experience. Capturing mundane but extraordinary aspects of contemporary life, each artist draws out regions of the unfamiliar often overlooked aspects of experience. Each work has the potential to evoke a range of emotions as Aiteall reflects a tangible and intrinsically human world, conscious of both its faults and triumphs.

‘Aiteall - fine spell between two clouds’ features work by Beata Dudzik, Sarah Holden, Áine Kelly, Anna McKinstry and Kate Murphy and runs until Sunday, 5 June 2024. 

An accompanying exhibition, entitled ‘Social Canvas’ will be on show in the Dr Billy Colfer Gallery. It is a collaboration between SETU and Creative Spaces Enniscorthy. It promotes inclusion and the importance of embedding SETU into the community, enhancing awareness, access, and participation in the Arts.

‘Social Canvas’ is the work of third-year Art and Visual Communication and Design students. It was produced as a result of their Socially Engaged Practice module.

Members of the following community-based groups participated in this exhibition: Enniscorthy Men’s Shed; members of the Traveling Community; the Wise Dollies of Enniscorthy; Down Syndrome Enniscorthy; and Martina Leacy’s dance classes.

‘Social Canva’ runs until Tuesday, 21 May 2024.