KEEPING THE PEACE: The collaboration between the Irish Defence Forces at Collins Barracks, the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, and Cork 2005 is another example of what the designation as Capital of Culture can spur into being.

Welcome to the Hotel Africa is a photographic collection (example right) by Simon Norfolk, which runs from August 11th to September 2nd at 21 Lavitt's Quay. That's the O'Callaghan Properties site which hosted the Salgado exhibition, and in a way the Norfolk pictures have a connection, being images of this country's peace-keeping forces in Liberia; Salgado presented communities for whom the peace was not kept.

For this commission, Norfolk became artist-in-residence to the Irish Army in Liberia, but he also mounts the companion exhibition Refuge, a study of refugee camps in the Balkans, at the Sirius Centre from August 12th to September 4th. The Sirius Arts Centre is also the location of his public lecture on August 12th at 8pm.

MUSICAL YOUTH . . . Fifteen-year old violinist Jennifer Pike, youngest ever winner of the BBC's Young Musician of the Year when she was 12, will be performing with her father, pianist, composer and conductor Jeremy Pike, at the Crawford Gallery at lunch-time on August 9th.

DOUBLE ACT . . . The Triskel Arts Centre is the venue for a poetry reading by Peter Fallon and Paul Muldoon - their first shared event in 25 years - on August 13th.

CAST OF CHARACTERS . . . On Monday next the Goat Island summer school for local artists begins at Triskel - it has been booked out for months. Still, it's good to see how promptly the city's actors jumped at the opportunity offered by this Triskel-Cork 2005 initiative. These, after all, will be the people from whom Pat Talbot intends to draw his in-house production casts for the Everyman Palace.