Cycles

Cycles is an arts participation project created by Carlow Arts Festival that has been taking place across Hacketstown, Rathvilly, Graiguecullen and Tullow, exploring language, history, landscape and cycling led by artists Michelle Browne and Eszter Némethi. We have been looking back 100 years to 1923 and imagining our future in 2123 through a series of workshops, talks and discussions.

This project is culminating in a collective cycling experience on the 24th of September 2023- an 18km loop with an audio piece that shapes people’s experience of the cycle with some other surprises along the way. Towards the end of the cycle, Carlow Community Choir will sing a special song created by Carlow musicians Ye Vagabonds for this project inspired by the texts created during the workshops.

Cycles is part of ART2023, a Decade Of Centenaries programme, presented by The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon in association with the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. This project has been supported by Creative Ireland and Healthy Ireland and is part of the European Week of Sport.

This project was developed in partnership with County Carlow Sports Partnership, Carlow Arts Office, Carlow County Development Partnership CLG, Carlow County Library, Carlow County Museum, Carlow Road Cycling Club and County Carlow Environmental Network.

Spokes, as part of Cycles, was a series of discussions and workshops about our sense of place within County Carlow that took place during our festival in 2023. Spokes hosted conversations on language, cycling, ecology and more.