Love Castlebar, a group now made-up of more than 200 volunteers dedicated to promoting the county town as an attractive place in which to live and visit, has launched a new project to beautify vacant or derelict spaces.
Love Castlebar has won praise from many quarters for its recent ‘Facelift’ project, which involves teams of volunteers giving up their spare time at weekends to clean and paint vacant or derelict commercial premises in the heart of the town.
An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, performed the official launch of the group’s newest creative intiative, The Spaces Between, at a recent event in the Linenhall Arts Centre.
The Spaces Between is bringing together members of the creative community to develop visual art and horitcultural installations to transform the unused spaces between buildings, such as alleys and laneways.
Artists are invited to submit their ideas over the next five weeks. The submissions will then go before a selection panel and the ideas will be implemented early next year by the Love Castlebar team.
Helen O’Hara, founder of Love Castlebar, said the project is a wonderful opportunity for “the people of Castlebar to unleash their creativity and help make this one of the best places to live in Ireland.”
Speaking at the launch, Mr Kenny described Love Castlebar as an excellent example of positive citizen engagement and community mobilisation.
“I wish Helen and the team of over 200 volunteers the very best with The Spaces Between and their ambitious plans for 2015,” said the Taoiseach.
For more information on The Spaces Between, find Love Castlebar on Facebook.
