Director’s Welcome

Foundation15 is back! It’s red hot and as cool as ice this year bringing you some of the most exciting contemporary visual art, dance, theatre & music. F15 is all about culture, community and collaboration. Let’s face it, art is all about questioning, experimenting and discovery and this year we are inviting you to join us on our 2 week cultural mission. Let push some boundaries and break some rules together!

Tullamore is the first Irish town to have curated its own art exhibition from the national collection via an online vote so we have already made history together.  You selected ten of your favourite works from the Irish Museum of Modern Art and now you can come see them in the flesh alongside 40 other works from some of the most exciting Irish and international artists at this years Quantum Leap exhibition.

Our BYOB policy is back, so grab a bottle of your favourite poison and join us in the new F15 Live Venue for a night of raucous spoken word from international poets, inspirational Theatre fresh from Dublin Fringe Festival or for hoppin’ beats at our F15 Secret Gig. Remember our sold out gig last year when King Kong Company blew the roof off a disused warehouse? Or the year before when R.S.A.G. tore up an old office block? Well this year we are sitting on a live one and we can not wait to let you in on our dirty little secret.

Culture night sees the F15 Quantum Gallery transformed into a performance space where French Dance Company Scalene will be performing an experimental interactive work choreographed by Youtci Erdos.   We will also be blindfolding an entire audience and asking them to surrender themselves to Miriam Smyth’s award winning radio play Elephant and that’s just a few of our highlights.

Will somebody please think of the children! Foundation15 isn’t for just for arty adults, musos or thesibians it’s all about young people. F15 Kids Day is jam-packed from time-traveling art workshops to shadow chasing and graffiti we really have something for all ages. But the kids are back at school? Oh we got that covered, this year we will again be opening our gallery doors to both primary and secondary schools for more fun filled afternoons where they tell us what they really think about art.

This year we have some amazing collaborative projects including ‘Our Nation’s Sons’ headed by local artist Joe Caslin, which see’s Caslin working with three secondary schools. Upwards of 2000 students will help him realise yet another monstrously ambitious project right in the heart of Tullamore town. Remember F15 is nothing without your support and imagination, so hop on board the F15 mothership we are set for a full-on warp speed adventure!

I look forward to meeting you!

Brendan Fox
Director/curator