We can’t wait to see this come together.

Five large-scale artworks will be installed in Cork city centre spots between June and December this year as part of a brand new contemporary art trail.

The project, announced today by Cork City Council, is intended to enhance the city centre by providing an experience that is “arresting, intriguing and playful” whilst illuminating the city’s unique heritage.

Island City, Cork’s Urban Sculpture Trail will see the temporary artworks remain in situ for a period of five years, forming a unique trail through the city streets.

Collectively, the sculptures will create a series of experiences to be enjoyed in daylight and after dark.

Cork’s National Sculpture Factory has been engaged by the City Council to support the project and four of the five sculptures were commissioned following a process conducted in 2022.

They are:

• COAL QUAY: Urban Mirror by Berlin-based Plattenbaustudio will take the coloured facades and intimate scale of Coal Quay as its starting point and reinterpret Cornmarket Street as a room without a roof containing a free-form table, held in place by an oversized “pin” with a coloured globe of light at its top.
• CAREY’S LANE: On Carey’s Lane, contemporary Irish artist, Niamh McCann will create a suspended, lane-length sculptural piece that will take its form from the architecture, topography and incidental features along the length of the lane. Sentinals [flew through the ages in the shape of birds] will nod to Cork City’s diverse and migratory history.
• PRINCES STREET: Linking the past to the present, Fiona Mulholland will populate the façade of the Exchange Building on Princes Street with large-scale sculptural reliefs. The Face Cup is based on a collection of exceptional Bronze Age ceramic artefacts dating to about 1800BC, that were excavated in Cork
• COOK STREET: Forerunner intends a present-day rupture within the cityscape on Cook Street with Boom Nouveau – a series of sculptures based on tangible everyday urban street features which mimic natural forms.

An open competition to commission the fifth and final artwork in the trail – a lighting projection – will be announced in the coming months.

The commissions were selected by an expert panel that included Eva Rothschild (Artist); Dr Linzi Stauvers (Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK); Natalie Weadick (Curator and former Director of Irish Architecture Foundation) and representatives from Fáilte Ireland and Cork City Council.