Local businesses offer New Spaces for artists

Local businesses are taking part in a special programme aimed at providing new platforms to showcase the work of local artists.
Curators Alice Butler, Edy Fung, Mirjami Schuppert and Rebecca Strain will be transforming local businesses into temporary gallery spaces for local artists.Curators Alice Butler, Edy Fung, Mirjami Schuppert and Rebecca Strain will be transforming local businesses into temporary gallery spaces for local artists.
Curators Alice Butler, Edy Fung, Mirjami Schuppert and Rebecca Strain will be transforming local businesses into temporary gallery spaces for local artists.

New Spaces is a programme of 16 contemporary art exhibitions across four venues in Londonderry and Sion Mills.

Led by Visual Artists Ireland in collaboration with Derry City & Strabane District Council, supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland through the National Lottery Challenge Fund and Arts and Business Northern Ireland, New Spaces hopes to make contemporary art more accessible throughout the region.

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Four curators were selected from a competitive open call to each produce four exhibitions inside a brewery, a café, a thatched cottage and a renovated 19th Century stables.

Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District, Councillor John Boyle, said it was an innovative approach to celebrating the local arts.

“I am delighted to see local businesses supporting the New Spaces programme and providing alternative locations in which to enjoy the work of some of our most talented local artists and curators,” he said.

The four curators taking part in the programme, Edy Fung, Rebecca Strain, Mirjami Schuppert and Alice Butler, will create exhibitions that will bring diverse new work to the region from artists across Ireland and further afield.

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The four local venues taking part are The Walled City Brewery in Ebrington, Gwyn’s Cafe and Pavilion, Brooke Park, The Cottage in The Craft Village, and Sion Stables in the heritage village of Sion Mills.

John Kerr, Arts & Culture Manager with Derry City and Strabane District Council, said the programme offered a fantastic opportunity to enhance the cultural offering here.

“New Spaces provides an excellent model for local business and cultural venues to engage and be active partners in the development of the district’s well respected arts and cultural offer,” he said.

To find out more about the programme visit http://visualartists.org.uk/newspaces/