SpaceFest touches down in Cork from 10-17 November

This year's slate of events includes poetry workshop and 'space cocktails'

Life

Greywood Artists-in-residence Kerry Guinan, Luisa Charles and Nicholas Carn

SpaceFest, run by Greywood Arts in partnership with the National Space Centre (NSC) and supported by Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland, celebrates Science Week by combining science and the arts to explore the cosmos. This year’s festival offers a week-long programme for adults, teens, and families, running from Sunday, 10 November through Sunday, 17 November.

Now in its fourth year, SpaceFest is expanding beyond its previous homebase at the NSC. This year events will be held across Cork City at venues including Marina Market, UCC, Blackrock Castle Observatory, and Cork County Cricket Club. In East Cork, activities will take place at Greywood Arts (Killeagh) and the National Space Centre (Midleton).

Some of the dozen SpaceFest events around Cork City and County include a Space Cocktails Speakeasy with ‘Astroholic’ Dr Alfredo Carpineti and food truck alumni Niamh Hergarty; Distant Galaxies Poetry Workshop led by poet Kerri Sonnenberg; and Stellar Perspectives at Solaris, an astrophotography exhibit featuring images of the heavens and night skies over Ireland.

The week culminates with Cosmic Debris, an immersive multimedia exhibition that challenges the audience to rethink our place in the cosmos and the impact we leave behind. Held at the National Space Centre beneath the site’s iconic 32-metre Big Dish, tickets for this event include a tour of the facility.

Greywood artists-in-residence Nicholas Carn, Kerry Guinan and artist/engineer Luisa Charles will present levitating sculptures and moving images created in response to the issue of space debris.

Selected from mre than 100 applicants, these three internationally exhibited artists engaged with both Blackrock Castle Observatory and UCC’s Crawford Observatory during their residency at Greywood Arts in Killeagh in order to bring hard science into the creative interpretation on exhibit.

Big Listening and Radio Silence, featuring sound, sculptures and listening devices created by nearly 150 young participants from Greywood’s space-themed STEAM programme will also be on display for visitors to see and interact with.

As one of a number of accessibility initiatives rolled into the Festival, a special session for Deaf and Hard of Hearing visitors facilitated by ISL interpreter Keira O’Connell.

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