Cork Midsummer Festival announces 'reimagined' programme of events
A 3D Covid-19 lockdown experience and theatre performances viewed from your front garden are among a series of reimagined events which will be unveiled today to bring this year’s Cork Midsummer Festival to audiences in line with public health guidelines.
The artistic team behind the festival are also set to announce specially commissioned artworks for a series of billboard walks around Cork city, a unique experience with a virtual artist who promises to transform the solitary experience of binge-watching television shows, and a taste of the city’s now famous ‘long table’ picnic event but again, from the comfort of your own home.
Festival director Lorraine Maye will announce more details of the inspired and wide range of events later and has assured that all the planned activity will be within Government guidelines, with the health and safety of audiences and artists foremost in their minds.
She said the team was very disappointed to have to announce the cancellation of the planned 2020 festival in March when the scale of the pandemic and its impact became clear.
But she said everyone involved has been working with the various festival partners to find new and interesting ways to bring high-quality arts events and experiences to audiences, despite the pandemic.
“Nothing will replace the festival - our annual gathering of thousands, the hundreds of artists and arts workers that were due to participate this year or the venues that produce the most extraordinary work for the festival every year,” she said.
While social distancing continues, the challenge for the arts and other sectors is huge.
“We are proud to be working with Cork partners, 40 Irish and international artists and a range of participants from our community to keep the Cork Midsummer light shining in June.
“We invite you all to take part from your own home this year and look forward to the bright festival days of Cork Midsummer Festival 2021.”
The festival will engage with the public in four ways between June 10 and 21 - outdoors, at home, with artists in residence, and through online discussions.
Among the highlights for the outdoor strand will be Corcadorca’s travelling theatre performance, Contact, exploring our new reality and the shared challenge around human contact, which will be brought into communities across the city, with people able to view the performance from the safety of their own garden.
Eight Cork-based visual artists have been commissioned by the Glucksman to create artworks for a series of billboard walks around Cork city in a project called New Light, which it is hoped will tap into the experience of noticing our surroundings anew after a period of confinement and isolation.
The billboards will also act as postcards that can be shared online for those who can’t get out and about, or who can’t visit Cork just yet.
And Tom Lane has created site-specific audio walks, narrated by Mark D’Aughton and Olwen Fouéré, including sounds from the river Lee an updated version of the Shakey Bridge listening piece he created in 2013, which can be experienced on any bridge across the River Lee.
The at-home events include a special long-distance arts project and game by Little Druids for Humanity aimed at children and families, the Binge event which will see people in the virtual company of an artist having their solitary experience of binge-watching television shows transformed, and Cork’s Long Table Picnic, which will be staged at home this year, with picnic baskets stuffed full of produce available to buy from The Imperial Hotel closer to the date.
Under the artists in residence element, people will be invited to share their own lockdown experience via 3D imagery which will be uploaded to create a world of hidden moments in a new work called, Shelter and Place, being developed by Leon Butler and Peter Power (CMF Artist-In-Residence).
Artist Marie Brett and writer Katie Holly are also working on an online film, sound and visual art work exploring how social history surrounding the 1832 Cholera epidemic relates to Covid-19 events.
A number of online talks will also take place with key arts figures set to explore the challenges facing the sector now, and the changes they’d like to see and be a part of.
