For our take over of Curfew Tower we decided to split the residency into 2 halves: the first half hosting Maria de Lima, Mike Davis and Craig Dow, and the second Natasha Bird and Alicia Logan.

Below are a few shots of the first leg of the residency, from the ferry caf to pints at the local…

Natasha Bird at Curfew Tower – December 2010

During my stay at the Curfew Tower I produced work in two strands. Both were related to the unique architecture of the building, also drawing on the surrounding landscape and folklore of the area.

Inside the top floor room of the tower I produced string sculptures that formed tunnels between the windows. These yellow twine structures enclosed the openings in the space, creating a line that cut straight through the space – almost bringing the outside all the way through the room. These experiments were made in response to the experience of staying in the tower – of feeling very aware of being inside. In its past use the tower enclosed those who disobeyed the curfew and protected the keeper of the tower. These string tests were made while I thought on this history, and by playing with the amazing character of the architecture.

The main outcome of my stay at the Curfew Tower was a light installation based on a poem by W.B. Yeats called The Wanderings of Oisin. Alicia Logan, my fellow artist during the residency, had brought a volume of Yeats with her to the tower. Our first evening in Cushendall, we discovered that Ossian’s Grave (same mythological figure, different spelling) was only few miles outside the town. Therefore during our own wanderings we visited this place, so full of magic and legend! The piece that I produced at the tower took a line from this poem and transcribed it into code. The letter A was one second of light, B was two seconds of light and so on. I was interested in this (very inefficient) code as the most basic transformation I could think of to turn text into light. This light code was projected from the top-floor, sea- facing window of the tower, emulating a lighthouse or signal towards the sea.

This video began as a means to reflect on the idea of remote experience. I had become obsessed with figuring out how much information and, especially, how many images of Curfew Tower I could find online. I wanted to formulate a basic experiment to test my experience of reality once I had been confronted by its image for so long.

We arrived in Cushendall late at night, and as I looked at the tower spot-lit by street lights my response was muted. I felt no sense of familiarity, and much less any great revelation on my initial inquiry. I suppose the images I had spent so long looking at had become a part of the reality of this building, linked to the physical existence of the tower, but quite apart from it.

By contrast, the second half of this video was left to chance and some in situ inspiration. I found it within the tower as I looked through the art works accumulated over years and framed texts by Bill Drummond, the originator of this residency. Surrounded by papier mache towers, felted towers, photographed towers, drawn towers, painted towers, quilted towers, I felt a bit of a fool with a superfluous video tower to add to this motley collection.

Reading over Drummond’s manifesto I was reminded of how I’d come to be here. He did specify after all: selected artists are to make ‘work that is a response to the tower, the locality or the people of Cushendall’. Was that just a crap brief though?

In response to these constraints I have made a piece of work I never would have done otherwise. I see this as positive, however I still have strong suspicions about the quality of art that can be produced within such a closed brief. This really opens onto more general questions around current trends in residencies: should there be so much focus on making artists interact with the local community; how much compromise on artistic freedom does public funding involve; how do you quantify the outcomes of any residency?…
***
Reading over this piece of text back in London I’ve been prompted to look over the material I had gathered at Cushendall, and make an alternative version of the original film. There’s definitely more of a focus on my current obsession, subtitling, here that briefly makes an appearance in my ‘Heart of the Glens’ video.

Running North East up Shore Street, 29.10.10. speed 4.4 (MPH), distance 1.7 MILES, time 20:06 MIN.

Running North through Cottage Wood, off High Street, 02.11.10. Speed 5.7 (MPH), distance 2.5 MILES, time 25:36 MIN.

Running South through Cottage Wood, off High Street, 03.11.10. Speed 5.6 (MPH), distance 2.5 MILES, time 27:02 MIN.

Running North East along Shore Street, 04.11.10. Speed 5.8 (MPH), distance 3.0 MILES, time 31:27 MIN.

Running south along the pier, 12.11.10. Speed 4.6 (MPH), distance 1.0 MILE, time 10:12.

Running North along the beach, 13.11.10. Speed 5.6 (MPH), distance 1.5 MILES, time 14:02 MIN.

Running North, North East along the cliff path, 14.11.10. Speed 4.2 (MPH), distance 0.9 MILES, time 05:00 MINS.

Running North East along the cliff path, 14.11.10. Speed 4.0 (MPH), distance 0.8 MILES, time 04:31 MINS.

Running North, North East along the cliff path, 15.11.10. Speed 4.2 (MPH), distance 1.5 MILES, time 15:45 MINS.

A .pdf file containing a short description of the project. This is the same text which also went in the front of the handwritten diary which remains in the tower. Preferably, this text should also be included with any published documentation of the present project. If you decide to do so, please take care regarding the formatting of the text when it is copy-pasted from the PDF (for example, it contains two footnotes, which would probably require some additional manual editing).

cushendall_blurb

Two photographs which were taken during my residency in the Curfew Tower. One picture shows me sitting in front of the tower as I am writing my diary entry for that day. Next to me is an empty chair with a sign saying “Join me listening!”, which I put up for that day as an invitation to Cushendall’s residents. The second picture shows my entry in the Curfew Tower’s visitor book.

transcriptions of pages 1, 31, 41, and 50 of the 50-page listening diary which I maintained throughout my residency.

[13 Sep 2010] The silence of the [uninhabited] building as I am entering it for the first time in combination with its characteristic smell in the kitchen a moment of silence and rest during which I can hear the wind knocking against the door behind my back and later the AC adapter of my laptop making a high-frequency noise which it did not use to do anywhere else from outside the characteristic sound of cars driving on a wet street which is filtered as it spreads through the windows and inevitably reminds me of my grandmother’s place during my childhood then later in the shower the idea of writing a score on the bathroom walls for a song to be sung in the shower which uses the natural resonances of that particular space and when I am going shopping later the sound of my own voice as it tries to carry confidence towards the inhabitants of the village which I will [inhabit] myself for the next six weeks at night in bed surprise that the building itself does not make any noises which one needs to get used to like in the case of many other houses when one spends the first night there only once in a while the wind howling around the top of the tower and the occasional car passing by but other than that unexpected silenced which [14 Sep 2010] is interrupted by my own getting up in the morning and turning on the radio which only works on long wave and therefore has a very characteristic sound which in combination with the old-fashioned English of a Westminster parliament debate sounds like a re-broadcast from the 1950s before I do some work at the desk in the living room which is constantly interrupted by a sound of knocking whose source I cannot identify and of course the sound of air coming out of the shower’s cold water tap instead of cold water so I go for a walk [...]

[10 Oct 2010] [...] seemingly addressing me really only talks to his pal someone shouting conversation returning to the terrace of the Lurig Inn and within seconds it becomes clear that it must be someone on the phone the characteristic rhythm of a dialogue interrupted by the suspicious breaks of a phone conversation new footsteps and a brief snort from behind the Lurig Inn the sound of glass being deliberately broken once and then twice softened only by the flow of the river in which a duck is suddenly landing and thereby creates a sound which is surprisingly similar to that of [paper] being torn reverberate[d] sounds from inside the Lurig Inn next to which I am sitting on the riverside close to the street just beside the bridge the closest car horn so far somebody shouting out the name Paddy which seems to happen at least once during my daily listening sessions but I think it’s a different Paddy every time someone swearing on the street with that utterance suddenly merging with the voices from inside the Lurig Inn which I hear through the open door of its terrace another gentle-conversationed Sunday stroll plus a [golf ball] taking off in the distance the Lurig’s terrace door being opened further clothes rubbing against each other belonging to a person passing behind me virtuoso birdsong appearing out of nowhere and immediately being answered [by] one of the rare police sirens approaching male drunk conversation from the Lurig behind me tuned engine and the bird falls silent again remains the river’s three-stage acoustic flow down to the beach suddenly the sound of a pool table but not from the Lurig but where else a closing car door a sound like a tennis [racket] hitting the ball music appearing another golf ball drunken male conversation [...]

[16 Oct 2010] their arrival and at Johnny Joe’s musicians are tuning up everywhere around 9.30pm somewhere in the background fiddles already playing but it sounds more like a sound system in a back room cosy chatter in low-ceiling rooms a welcoming contrast to the grim cold outside Irish accents from all over the island the pretty girl sounds like she is coming from the Republic the trad music from tape has faded away behind a door that has been shut and it has given way to a man playing the guitar and singing a folk song in another [one] of Johnny Joe’s many rooms as I am being addressed by the first visitor commenting my writing my ear waiting for the moment where it is being engaged in a conversation but not yet it’s still early in the evening and as I am finishing the last sentence a gentleman asks me where I am from what I am doing and shakes my hand the room now fills with people and their mishmash of chatting acoustics from at least five different spaces overlap[s] and include[s] at least two different musical styles and four different kinds of instrument[s] the [third] person addressing me compliments me for my very neat handwriting and off he goes the folk song next door ends and is answered with applause but the trad music continues I am starting to think it must be coming from upstairs my chair[']s metal feet squeaking on the stone floor the pretty girl whispers something into her boyfriend’s ear which briefly turns him singing the door in front of me opens and more voices are fading in and out again as the people entering close the door behind them again another folk song starting [down]stairs and the trad upstairs could almost be a harmonization of its cantus firms the folk song voices grow louder when the lyrics consist of the words I love you and again the pretty girl’s voice returns from the bar and sounds rougher than that of pretty girls elsewhere the folk song chorus reaches the I love you moment again and everyone joins in [...]

[19 Oct 2010] [...] system booms along High Street very slowly and sits somewhere waiting squeaking break a similar but unidentifiable sound shortly after an approaching bus first sounds like a helicopter and is followed by a diesel engine and another squeaking break approaching the [20 Oct 2010] intersection next to the tower as I am standing and waiting at the bus stop for the bus to take me back to Belfast at the end of my residency the church bells are slowly ringing footsteps of a gentleman are passing by and as I suspected it’s the same gentleman who always passes by at this stop at this time of the morning so it’s the usual hello there and nice weather today a faint reverb of a construction site somewhere over the hill and bird songs fill the air above me on the ground it[']s the occasional vehicle but traffic has not yet gone into full swing for the day the air is clear both visually and acoustically as I am waiting for the bus a large variety of birds celebrating the beautiful morning a tractor passes by without the birds letting themselves be interrupted and shortly after a van passes and then one two three cars we have six minutes to go until the arrival of the bus to Belfast the construction site’s echo now a permanent acoustic landmark including vehicle backup alarms and the sounds of digging but in the closer proximity more and more birds a much greater variety than that which I have encountered over the past weeks footsteps of other people approaching the bus stop the silence of people waiting in a group exists at the same time with the construction site’s acoustic activity one more person approaching and starting a chat with one of the people already waiting in the local accent a lorry drowns their conversation for some moments and after it’s gone the construction site again and now my bus arrives.

THE GREENHOUSES OF CUSHENDALL

Extracts from a Cushendall Diary. September 2010

Day 1
I sit for a while just left of the main strand, looking at the sea and listening to the waves lapping.

Day 2
I walk up the hill behind the tower leading away from the town and the sea. The houses thin out to become a country road. Fuchsia hedges and abundant blackberries compel me to pick them though I have no bag. I vow to return with a bag and walk on but then start to look for a discarded plastic bag that I can use. There are several plastic bags filled with rubbish but then I find a usable empty bag. I walk past a field being ploughed and somehow feel part of the work being done, meshed into the moment like everything in that space and time is co-existing. I start to pick blackberries and notice the change in focus, previously had been outwards looking at the view, the fields, hills and mountains in the distance. Now all I see are blackberries, the pace is slow and it is hard to move without being stopped by more berries presenting themselves for picking. Eventually the bag is filling and I decide to return trying not to pick more berries as the bag is becoming uncomfortably heavy, but it seems impossible once started to ignore ripe berries. There is an incredible abundance, I feel like urging all the residents of Cushendall to pick blackberries and make jam. There is something very basic about this activity. The last time I remember making jam and picking berries was in my childhood with my mother, grandmother and aunts. It seems a strange task to do alone. This walk has a theme of redness, red stained hands, rosehips, red hawthorn berries, red admirals and peacock butterflies that stop occasionally.
In the evening I walk along by the river past the churches and back again at the crossroads, then past the Spar to the strand, the way the bus came in. This is a rather bleak part of Cushendall, housing estates, semi abandoned sports grounds and a general air of neglect. After the caravan park I turn down to the small pier, read the information plaque and turn left back to the town along by the strand. No real path after walking the shore for a while I go through the caravan park which leads to a small harbour with an estate of houses surrounding it, the path leads around the corner where the strand and golf course come into view. Anglers are half submerged in water, fishing.

Day 3
The river, gardens, the first seen glasshouses, a mountain to the left, I walk on till encroaching darkness and the busyness of the road make me turn back. As I return and pass the path that leads down to the river, the fisherman appears and shows me his catch, a beautiful brown trout.

Day 4
I reach the turn off to the church. At the entrance is a crab apple tree, black knarled branches and laden with fruit. The Layde Church yard is quiet no one else is visiting in the rain. Soft grass seems to envelop everything lapping at the edges of the graves and ruins. I enter the church, there is a sheltered part with remains of a fire and cans but I find it dark and musty and return outside to the rain. I wander the grounds for a while walking over to the edge to look seawards, then I turn to find the cliff path that leads back to Cushendall. The path is exhilarating despite the rain, to be perched high hugging the coast feels birdlike. At one point I find a sloe bush in full fruit. The path shows the fronts of the houses that I had been viewing from the back. I pass over a seemingly disused boathouse somewhat lonely looking, blindly gazing at the sea.

Extracts from a Cushendall Diary. October 2010

Day 1
I head for the sea and walk to the boathouse, I sit there for a while looking out.

Day 2
Rosehips, a glasshouse and further along a boat is incongruously placed beside the road overgrown with ferns and moss, re-naturalised, a landlocked vessel become arboreal. Past the partially hidden polytunnel, the crab apple tree is now pretty much barren having shed most of its fruit and leaves. Some rotten fruit is strewn on the ground.
Later following the shore leading towards Redbay. I pass the small pier where two blond haired boys are playing with a tyre, the older one rolls it into the sea. I continue along the shore and cut through the caravan park, it feels more intrusive to walk through streets of caravans rather than streets of houses. There are no cars, no lights on, all the caravans/mobile homes are empty. I come to the next pier and boat club and keep going. There is no path I walk along the shore picking shells and sea driftings. Some of the houses that lead to the sea here are huge and have their own private access for boats. I keep going past two barking dogs and a yacht perched at an odd angle the last marker of Cushendall village. The shore now hugs the road and a bridge. Another line of caravans is perched above the road they are painted that kind of lichen green that seems to be particular to Cushendall. I have seen several corrugated iron structures painted that distinctive colour. Too dark to photograph the line of caravans now, one is lit up but as I walk on it is an illusion, an orange sodium street lamp behind a corner of windows suggesting occupancy. Another deserted caravan park in Cushendall at winter. I walk on reaching the road now and keep going to Redbay castle. I keep going to the pier. There is a boat at the end and I walk down, one man paces, we greet each other I walk on, a man and boy are busy with their fishing rods by their car. I walk to the end of the pier, step over the barrier, and walk round the corner there is a strong wind and an amazing view outwards from here. I stand for a while looking and then turn back to return to the village.

Day 3
Rain, disinclined to walk. I again take the road that I think leads to Ossians grave. I walk to where I had walked the day before and keep going. A farmer strides up the road, wellingtons and wax jacket. I am in waterproofs but my walking boots are inadequate in this deluge. As I walk on the rain worsens and dusk is falling. It is a beautiful but bleak part of Cushendall. The road leads to a gate. I climb over, I am now on private property but am determined to reach if not Ossians grave then some kind of resolution. An outhouse stands lonely the only structure in this part. There is a small mountain ahead that the road leads towards. Rain, darkness, the road worsens, more gates, sheep, the small mountain to the left now, mud, water, on some more, on some more then eventually I have to admit this road is not leading anywhere and turn back.

Day 4
I take the road that forks off the ‘Ossians dead end’ road. I know according to my map that this will loop back to Cushendall. Again it feels wrong to be a pedestrian, these roads are not for walking on, only driving. Sunshine and many greenhouses, sheds and structures seen from the road, over hedges. The road curves and rises, every bend seems to curve higher and further away from Cushendall, no sign of where it will loop to. Mist descends, that sunshine is back in Cushendall now, eventually far across the valley a parallel road appears but no sign of the one that I am on connecting to it. Cars pass, headlights on because of the mist. A cyclist appears, luminous in yellow, some likeness in speed. He passes too and slowly weaves out of view, revealing the link to the parallel road far ahead. Walk on, walk on, walk on. Reach the other road and turn in the direction of Cushendall again. Still slow but seems a bit faster because it is a return not a going. A car stops and an elderly couple offers me a lift, I am very touched particularly as the back seat contains two sleeping babies, but I decline their offer, saying that I want to walk which is true, but it is far longer and more arduous than I had imagined. Walk on walk on, past the pieced together Nordic looking house perched on the edge, walk on walk on, how many more turns till I come to the point I had reached before and return to the village.

AD 2011

Anne-Marie Dillon is an artist and activist. With a large family to look after, she studied art as a mature student and completed an MA in 2009. Her socially engaged work is centred round the small rural community of Ballykinler, Co Down, where she organizes events, from mother and toddler meetings to Bingo for pensioners. With no community centre, she started weekly coffee mornings in the open and later converted a caravan into a much used mobile community centre. Actions which seem like practical community work, are turned into happenings and performances through her politically provocative, practical and poetic artistic vision.

At the end of June 2010 we were given the freedom of the Curfew Tower for one weekend. While we were there we kept a diary, some extracts (or highlights?) of which follow:

Curfew Tower, 25.06.10 – Friday

We got here at half eleven this morning and got the keys from Hugh McAteer, an older gent who runs a clothes and shoe shop (called “Hugh McAteer”) adjacent to the tower. He seems real nice and has boots in his window just like the ones my grandad used to wear, kind of sturdy leather slip-on things with elasticated sides. We let ourselves in and climb to the top, taking it all in. All the rooms and stairwells are filled with art of varying quality. The best stuff includes some photographs of works by Moscow Joe McKinley, a milkman turned outsider artist from nearby Glenloy. Joe alienated his family (and some in the local community, who vandalised his work) by covering his house and two cars with placards and found objects relating to his various visits to Moscow, his many kittens, and other things dear to his heart. When he died in 2003 his family took the drastic and tragic decision to destroy virtually everything he had made. All that remains are a few photos and a couple of early works, pretty sad indeed. Read more about him here:

Moscow Joe.

Hugh McAteer

We have decided that the premise of our tenancy here should be to uphold the bygone tradition of the tower’s original use as a place for wasters, or “idlers and rioters” to quote the handout we were given. We should try to do as little work as possible, instead faffing about watching dvds and taking naps in the daytime like we do at home of an average weekend. Gradually the guilt at the time wasted will get to us, and our failure to properly take advantage of the opportunity to work here will be something we take back to our real lives, forcing us to be less lazy and more active with our time, all of which is special even (especially even) when it isn’t allocated within “special” parentheses such as artist’s residencies. To be fair I’m not sure we will go through with this plan (I have only vaguely consulted H for one thing) but if we don’t then our failure to stick even to a wasters discipline should be cause enough for reflection of some kind.

Cool Fungus, Knocknacarry

Drummond Kid Measurements, Kitchen

Saturday 11am

I can understand now why Bill Drummond might not want to live here all the time. We were warned about the noise but I kind of expected that to be confined to weekend carousing, and there was some of that but it was fine really. The real noise was coming from kids in suped up shit-heap cars (90s BMWs and Toyota Corollas) with insanely loud engines churning through the village over and over again for hours. It was louder than any nightime traffic noise I have heard in the city and I used to live on a main road. And it was seriously wreckless, really fast acceleration in a very tightly built up area. To be fair it’s their place and we’re just here for the weekend and have no real right to complain but I feel shit for decent people like Hugh who have to put up with it probably every weekend. Anyway we were so tired we slept through most of it. Earlier last night we went to the pub (Joes) for a couple after dinner, a real nice place with the feel of being literally in a public house with lots of little rooms and a couple of nice pianos here and there. The only drawback was when we overheard someone loudly referring to an
“American Negro”, like this was 1950 or something. Not sure what was more disturbing, what he said or the casual, quite unself-conscious way in which he said it. Back in the tower I was poking about with the trapdoor in the living room and am pretty sure I saw a bat roosting underneath, gave me a bit of a start but I think he was probably more freaked out than me, poor critter.

1pm

After lunch we found the log book in the dungeon which is full of entries from most of artists who have been here over the last few years. A lot of it (with some exceptions, to be fair) reads like some kind of massive GCSE portfolio, something which hasn’t escaped Drummond, who has left an entry about half way through bemoaning the high volume of “crap” art getting made here. There is also a notice in the kitchen from 2001 about how he burned most of the art made here in the first couple of years entitled “It’s All Fuckin’ Shite”. I think the only way around this is to have some kind of selction criteria for the residency, otherwise shit artists will keep turning up. But then I’m not sure if that is in line with the ethos of the place and of course it’s not all bad, we know several really good artists who have been here and produced good work. And who decides what is good or bad anyway? Maybe Bill would want to burn our stuff in the garden too. I’d like to see him try and burn a blog entry anyway.

Here and there are random bits and bobs associated with BD – an old Big in Japan sleeve in the dungeon, a Teardrop Explodes/Echo & the Bunnymen poster over a striplight in the kitchen, his kid’s heights marked up by the back door for the last three Augusts. He’s always there in the background, rightly so as it’s his place, and it’s kind of weirdly comforting to us.

Fantasy Castle Painting, Hallway

Teardrop/Echo Poster, Kitchen

7.30pm

In Cushendun today, where we walked down to the Dun river (so called for it’s peaty brown colour, like tea). When I was a kid this used to involve walking through a field of cows and cow shit and wading down through tall bracken to a sweet spot where a big tree hung over the shingle, but the cows were nowhere to be seen and there is now a well mowed and fenced off pathway maintained by the National Trust that leads down to the river. Also sadly the big tree is no more, reduced to a pile of logs. I think maybe it was in the way of a picnic spot which didn’t used to be there either, but maybe it just died and they had to chop it down. Kind of a shame but I guess they have to cater to the few tourists passing through. After some tea and a scone we walked along the strandline looking for beach glass and then over the bridge and round the corner to the caves which are amazing, an earthy red sandstone and pebbled all over with huge smooth rocks. Had a massive ice cream on the bus back and then had a disposable hot dog barbeque in the garden, right on the spot where Bill likes to burn shit art. The garden is on a slope so the sausages kept rolling onto the grass while they were cooking, still pretty tasty all the same.

Peat Stack, Cushendal

Cave Weirdos, Cushendun

Sunday/Monday

Cushendal beach seems to be a nightime hangout spot for the local kids, loads of broken bottles lying around in the sand and black tyre marks all over the car park. Not all that nice really but got some cool polished stones and driftwood and some nice blue and aquamarine beach glass which I think is quite rare (red and yellow are the rarest). Walked home and got ice lollys from the corner shop, manned by a brusque guy with a moustache. I’m not sure why a brusque guy would want to surround himself with frisbees and sweets but this one does. Remembered that the England match was on when we heard people cheering in the street – Germany had just scored the third goal of four. We turned on the radio in time to catch the last twenty minutes and it was pretty sweet, especially Chris Waddle’s anguished Geordie rant in the aftermath. For some reason this place can’t pick up FM radio which is kind of weird but Five Live is medium wave so it didn’t matter. Also means no Archers omnibus on Radio 4 which is always good news in my book.

Mega Hedge, Cushendal

Kitchen Table

Think we’re just going to hang out in the tower for our last day here til the bus in the evening. I guess it’s fair to say we have failed in our effort to do nothing all weekend, H has been doing lots of drawing and painting using some of our beachcombings and I guess this blog is my contribution of sorts. We’ve treated it more like a holiday than anything else though so I guess we get slacker points for that. Just hope Bill isn’t pissed!

Fuckin’ Shite, Kitchen

While on the residency I intended to think more about domestic scale actions and gestures. My idea was to work with people, talk to them about everyday actions and think about how normal everyday actions could be thought of as a performance or the basis of performance.

I also wanted to look at domestic relics, those things in the house that have gained importance beyond the sum of simple materials through being involved in significant activity. Before I started any focused purposeful talking to the folk of Cushendall, I decided to do a bit of cleaning. To take off the layer of use and non use that is representative of a fresh start. I washed the windows and began to sand the kitchen table. I video recorded these actions but didn’t record washing dishes or mopping the floor.

I realised at another time that I was documenting the domestic actions of my Dad. My Dad had a thing for sanding back the coffee table. My sister and me used to laugh that it would be like a wafer by the time he was satisfied with it.

Simultaneously I listened to the radio. As usual on Radio 4 there was interesting stuff on about art and history sometimes.

The action of sanding became a bit of a preoccupation while the action of recording it felt personally intimate and placed an aesthetic slant to my perception of what I was doing. In the apparent smallness of that activity there is, I am discovering, a serious profundity, I think.

Having had a hectic previous few months, my stay at the Curfew Tower gave me lots of time and space for free-thinking and making. With long hours in isolation and silence, without a mobile phone signal, TV or internet I began to realise how sequestered the tower felt. However the fantastic people and unspeakable beauty of the place quickly assured me I would have an enjoyable stay!

Over the course of an hour, hitting the shutter every 30 seconds and using a macros lense I took a series of photographs of the comings and goings of Cushendall through the huge keyhole in the tower’s front door.

I quickly bacme fascinated by the caravan parks dotted around the Glens area. These modular structures with such potential for mobility, temporary architecture on blocks, became the object of much of my thoughts. Their satellite dishes and antennas cracked me up! These ideals of a utopian holiday destination in prefabricated trailer homes, where the sky is always blue became manifest in the drawings, paintings and collages below.

… counting the stones at the beach – “An Impossible Task”

The 3rd of May saw Cushendalls’s U21 local hurling team Ruairí Ógs play Rasharkin in the first round of the Hurling Champions. Ruairí Ógs won with a resounding scoreline of Cusendall 7-13 Rasharkin 1-13. In honour of their victory and as a goodbye present of sorts, I established a temporary pirate radio station on board the tower’s rooftop. Using a home made coaxial cable antenna and a 50mW transmitter I broadcasted Queen’s “We are the Champions” on repeat for one hour on 106.5FM. I played a selection of my own favourite songs for another hour!

I had a fantastic time in The Curfew Towerl and would like to say thanks to all involved for making it happen – Thank You!

www.sineadconlon.wordpress.com