A major arts exhibition with an unusual story behind it opens in Waterford's Garter Lane Arts Centre this evening. Entitled "somebodies", the exhibition features work by the likes of Robert Ballagh, Nigel Rolfe, Dorothy Cross and Janine Antoni, from the Irish Museum of Modern Art collection.
The exhibition is unique in that secondary school students from Waterford, Meath and Dublin, who have been working over the past three years with the head of the museum's collection, Ms Catherine Marshall, are its curators. Those involved say this is the first time that people of their age have been invited into a national institution to be curators of an exhibition.
The project has grown to involve students from Meath and Dublin. The concept of the exhibition was developed through meetings at Garter Lane and the museum. There art works were selected, venues agreed and problems of space, lighting and catalogue design discussed.
The students involved made up their own minds about what works to include. One of the curators, Barry Gavin, says he chose the pieces he did because they stood out from the others in different ways.
"I didn't pick them for any artistic reason, really. I just like them, and that's what I'd like to see in an exhibition of art, pictures that are selected because the curators liked them, not for any feat of artistic achievement which, though skilful, can be horribly boring."
"Somebodies" will continue at Garter Lane Arts Centre until October 30th, after which it moves to the Bausch & Lomb plant in Waterford and then to Cavan County Museum. Admission is free.