The project involved planting over 600 trees and several stretches of new hedging across the town, as part of a wider project to bring the worlds of art and design together alongside the local community, in order to begin addressing the biodiversity crisis and adapting to climate change.
I was asked to create a poster to celebrate the project, based on the research by @deirdre.omahony on the social and cultural histories of Bridge Street during her residency at Fennelly's. We studied a map of Callan, and noticed how it was uncannily human-like in shape – and that the main areas for tree-planting were like lungs, and instrumental to the town’s air quality. With that in mind, I created an image that was a kind of map/figure hybrid, inspired also by the carving of the Green Man in nearby Kilkenny and the future growth of the trees. Swipe to see the original Callan map, and how the poster image came about.
The creatures around the map (magpie, heron, kingfisher and otter) are species that frequent the town and will benefit from the rewilding. Meanwhile, the peacock represents the famous Fennelly’s on Bridge Street – which is at the town’s centre and is the ‘spine’ of our figure. Other represented elements of the town are Keoghs bakery (sheaf of wheat), local artist Tony O’Malley’s signature hat, The KCAT Arts Centre (the fish riding a bicycle), Mary Powers Cottage (the cats), and the swimmers in the ‘Paupers’ swimming spot.
Alongside all of these are some of the sounds you might hear as you explore the area’s new wildlife areas.