2014 foreword

In the springtime the evenings tend to stretch. Perhaps we feel this more out of expectation than in calculable measures of time as something within us begins to stir. Here is a quickening. The Winter, wet, windy and wilful is slowly being brought to heed by a different tempo.

Rumour can become reality like when Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, stopped his car while driving through Nenagh and popped into what used to be Harry’s shop on Banaba Square and bought some sweets! cola bottles! milk teeth! some liquorice too!

It doesn’t really matter whether he did or not. What matters is that the story became fact for some people and formed an impression of a place… a happening… a little piece of awesomeness.

Vedder’s ukulele songs are dreamily reminiscent and beat out a gentle rhythm. A rhythmical journeying through time and space. Both a celebration and a call to happiness.

For this year’s switch event we invite the Finnish artist Santtu Koivu into our town and onto our streets. We ask her to weave unfamiliar rhythms into the fabric of a small Irish town – one with it’s own beat, pulse, intimacies and truths. We welcome an artist who will bring to Nenagh a new perspective, a new altered and re-animating tempo for a week long session that will not happen again.

Triona Ryan