Seeing the Wood for the Trees is a 3-year placemaking project branching outward from Glenbower Wood in Killeagh, County Cork. One of Ireland’s earliest examples of community ownership, Glenbower is an ancient native woodland bisected by the Dissour River.
Projects & Events
The project was sparked by collaboration with Nocht Studio for the 2024 May Sunday Festival. Artists Philip Ryan and Martin McGloin were commissed to facilitate a community co-designed pavilion at the entrance of the wood. Asking how this could be done in a way that puts nature first, the Seed Pavilion came to be.
The project focused on nature-first design methods and architectural perspectives to empower participants to shape the creation of a pavilion that held space for music, performances, talks and workshops during the May Sunday festival. The process has begun to create new collective and contemporary traditions for the village, and a lasting legacy beyond the festival. Participants represented a wide cross section of our community: Active retired, National and Secondary school students, COPE Clients and local artists and interested community members.
Read more about it here: https://nocht.studio/the-seed-pavilion
Seeing the Wood for the Trees is a three-year placemaking initiative developed by Greywood Arts in partnership with Glenbower Wood & Lake Committee and Nocht Studio. Centred around the community-owned Glenbower Wood, this initiative uses art to inspire care for the environment, celebrate local heritage, and bring people together to explore and strengthen their connection to this special place.
Thanks to support from the Creative Ireland and Cork County Council Creative Communities Fund, 2025 will see projects like “Idir an Dá Linn,” or “Between the Two Lakes”, which explores the loss of Glenbower Wood’s man-made lake that was drained in the late 1980s. Members from the locality will work with Nocht Studio and early Gaelic harp player Mícheál Ó Catháin to create a community keen, using the Irish language, making space to grieve this loss and inspire active caretaking of the woodland. Developed through collaboration between Philip Ryan and the woodland’s management committee supported by an Artist in the Community Research and Development award, this collective act aims to make space to grieve the lost landscape and inspire active caretaking of the woodland.
Funding from Community Foundation Ireland’s Climate Action Works Engagement Fund will support outreach and awareness raising of Glenbower Wood’s community ownership and the challenges volunteers face managing invasive species like cherry laurel and rhododendron. The works kicked off with workshops with Kyle National School making sustainable signage reflecting their relationship to the woodland, which will be on display in the wood during the May Sunday Festival.
Threads of Time by Olivia Hassett
An exploration of 3-generation’s connection to place. Olivia’s family hail from Killeagh and she recalls spending time in Glenbower when she visited her grandmother. Olivia will be in residence at Greywood Arts in March to develop a live art work in collaboration with her mother and her grandmother’s 120-year old Singer sewing machine to be performed at the May Sunday Festival. Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Greywood Arts is also partnering with a collective of four artists on the this/OUR deep mapping project. this/OUR is a community deep mapping project exploring Glenbower Wood through art, history, ecology and citizen science, led by artists Basil Al-Rawi, Chris Finnegan, Katie Nolan and Philip Ryan in partnership with Greywood Arts. Deep mapping is a transdisciplinary process that layers community voices, artistic interpretations, historical narratives, and ecological perspectives into a multidimensional narrative of place. This methodology, inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’ short essay On Exactitude in Science, allows us to explore the tension between the precision in defining “THIS” place and the transient, relational nature of “OUR” connection to it. The artists will receive mentorship from archeologist Jonski Millar, historian Dr. Kevin O’Sullivan, and ecoliteracy educator Dr. Cathy Fitzgerald. The artists have received an Arts Council of Ireland Project Award and support from Cork County Council. Details about the project here: this/OUR
Over three years, Nocht Studio will respond to the problem of invasive species affecting the woodland. Exploring creative reuse of harvested cherry laurel, artist Philip Ryan is exploring its potential for greenwood furniture making. Currently in a research and development phase, the stools will stack and interlock, forming a Stool Pavilion for use during future May Sunday Festivals. Growing over time, our vision is to eventually make a stool representing each household in the community. .
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