The objective of this project was to encourage discourse outside buildings often used for conventional art display- namely 'galleries.' Whereas the 5 individual 'Stations' or 'Households' acted as sort-of art satellites interfused within the community, communicating with each other and the Butler Gallery.

The Stations project kicked off with artworks being delivered to their new homes in October 2002. The 5 households were situated around Kilkenny town. They volunteered themselves after we had made contact through various community groups - New Park Close Family Resource Centre, Asylum Seekers Friendship Club, LARC Lady's Friendship Club and Kilkenny Wheelchair Association. At the end of the month we visited the houses and documented the work in situ as well as videoing the hosts responses. Each artwork then went on to the next house and so on for 5 months until each house had all 5 artworks.

An exhibition and a publication documenting the project happened in May 2003. The hosts were also invited to exhibit their own collections in the gallery, e.g., ceramic plates, photographs, along with the video documentation and the actual artworks that they lived with. A public talk and children's workshops also formed part of the event.

The Stations project was a very exciting project for us to do. Butler Gallery's Collection has almost 400 artworks. Unfortunately, due to space restrictions in our current building and to our temporary exhibition programme, we can only exhibit a selection from the Collection once a year in the Gallery. Stations gave a real hands on access to some of the best works in the collection in a setting outside of the gallery. We deliberately asked for volunteers who wouldn't normally encounter contemporary art or visit galleries.

The artworks were: Little Flame in a Boat by Alistair Wilson, Branch Cube by David Nash, St. Sebastian by Clifford Rainey, Cubic Fault by David Lambert and Serpent by Diana Hobson.

The Butler Gallery began collecting under the Kilkenny Art Gallery Society in 1942 and has since then built a wonderful resource of contemporary art for the people of Kilkenny. Kilkenny has one crucial resource - their people. Human cleverness, motivations and creativity are the key elements to the success of this project. We hope to make the experience of contemporary art more vital by harnessing peoples imagination and willingness to participate in the project.

Butler Gallery, The Castle, Kilkenny, Ireland
t: 00 353 (0)56 7761106, f: 00 353 (0)56 7770031, e: info@butlergallery.com