EVA International to look back at its 45- year history in Limerick
EVA HAS ANNOUNCED Never Look Back, a new initiative that revisits their 45 year history of producing contemporary art exhibitions and events in Limerick.
Originally founded by artists in 1977, EVA remains one of the longest running visual arts organisations in Ireland and leads in the commissioning and curating of contemporary art.
Never Look Back seeks to illuminate a rich history of contemporary art that intertwines with the urban evolutions of Limerick city and will begin in November.
It will explore EVA’s history in Limerick through sites it temporarily occupied, such as offices, shops, museums, ex-industrial units, and public spaces all used for the presentation of contemporary art.
EVA Director Matt Packer commented: “The Never Look Back initiative not only provides an opportunity to tell this story through the sites and spaces that art has temporarily inhabited, it also provides a platform of critical and creative responses to ideas of art’s relationship to architecture, to people, and to place.”
The project was developed with the partnership of a working group of architects and artists including Peter Carroll, Caelan Bristow and Fiona Woods.
The initiative hopes to provide new access and understanding of Limerick’s unique story of contemporary art, while thinking critically about the ways that art takes place within the public realm, often through processes of regeneration and redevelopment.
“In its 45 plus years of existence, EVA offers a unique and invaluable story of contemporary art in a city that has, itself, undergone considerable change during this same period,” Mr Packer said.
The inaugural projects of Never Look Back in 2022 include a website & digital resource designed by An Endless Supply which will go live in November and the first of a series of curatorial commissions that respond to EVA’s history in Limerick by Kate Strain, Rachael Gilbourne and Michele Horrigan of Askeaton Contemporary Art.