Tramore Valley Park, a reclaimed former landfill site is home to the ongoing KinShip public art project. The project includes a programme of citizen-led skills and knowledge based public exchanges, artist's placements, the construction of a KinShip EcoLab based on sustainable construction methods, and a focused series of interventions in the park.
The KinShip project is a long term public artwork, developing a variety of socially engaged cultural initiatives at Tramore Valley Park, starting in 2022.
Tramore Valley Park has been the site of great environmental change. From 1964 to 2009, this site was used as a landfill for Cork city. The area first opened up as a park in 2015 before fully opening to the public in 2019.
The public park is home to The KinShip art project offering interested communities an opportunity to gather together and to respond creatively and critically to the ecological and climate action challenges we face today. The overall aim of the art project is to foster a deeper sense of connection between the people of Cork and the park as a habitat and ecosystem.
Situated on a remediated city landfill, the project honours the need to confront the reality of damaged places, such as Tramore Valley Park, recognising that many environments are irreversibly transformed due to human activities. As part of this work we grapple with the entangled histories and ongoing consequences of environmental damage, coming together to take action within this context.
KinShip is a space to consider our relationship to public land, the interrelationship we have with all species of the natural world, to address the legacy of ‘throw away’ culture, to engage with new modes of managing waste and to develop an ethics of response and 'response-ability'.
To achieve this, there is an ongoing creative programme of citizen-led skills and knowledge based exchanges, artist's placements, the construction of a KinShip EcoLab based on sustainable construction methods, and a focused series of creative interventions in the park.
All of these elements endeavour to put the local community at the heart of the KinShip project.
The KinShip project is led by artist collaboration Lennon Taylor in partnership with Cork City Council. Local partners have formed a working group that includes Cork Healthy Cities, Cork Nature Network, Green Spaces for Health, MTU Clean Technology Centre, UCC Environmental Research Institute.
This is one of the inaugural fifteen climate action projects in Ireland funded by the Creative Climate Action fund through Creative Ireland, 2022. The Creative Climate Action Fund supports creative projects which can meaningfully connect people with profound changes happening in our environment, society and economy arising from climate change.
While the project was first awarded funding in 2021 to launch in 2022, now in 2024 we have continued to be awarded project funding under the Cork City Council Creative Climate Fund, as well as through MTU's Create Le Cheile Arts funding.
At the moment (Autumn 2024) the project is concentrating on working with local communities to co-design a new governance model for sharing the KinShip EcoLab, a new public space for meetings and workshops that focus on climate change, sustainable practices, creative actions or critical thinking at Tramore Valley Park.
This Creative C-Change report presents key insights and learnings from the MaREI Centre for Energy, Climate & Marine and the Future Sustainability Research Group's engagement with five Creative Ireland-funded Creative Climate Action projects.
The five selected projects were Crumlin Taking Action Together, Field Exchange, Kinship, Línte na Farraige and Repair Acts. The overarching aim of the research was to capture the impact of these arts, cultural and creative projects and their events on climate change awareness, engagement and action in Ireland.
Read this report here -
https://www.creativeireland.gov.ie/app/uploads/2023/05/Creative-Climate-Action-Creative-C-Change.pdf
Read this report here -
