Visual Cookie_Simulation Cafe

Exhibition: Visualise Carlow

Curator: Annie Fletcher

Courtesy: The artist

The project was composed of two parts which followed each other in time. The Visual Cookie – Simulation Café project was a communication model to get a dialogue going between the local audience and contemporary art production. How to engage the local audience to become part of the development process of both “visual” aspects – the art centre, and Carlow itself? The town was at the time facing massive development and was set to become a major player in the dynamic southeast system of towns and cities, and this international contemporary art space found itself part of that process. The project aimed to question the ideas of the local audience participating in the “making” of their own cultural platform, giving them the opportunity for international communication, as well as addressing the notion of what this meant to them and what they expected from it.

The Simulation Café contained a little library with art books and catalogues collected from all over the world, and a video document from the opening discussion, which focused on the idea of the relationship between the local audience and the contemporary art space. The Café was set up right in Carlow town centre for a number of weeks and became the talking shop for the people of Carlow where they would come to look and debate about what contemporary visual art actually was, and of course to eat those sensational new futuristic cookies!