We ❤️ Weir Pool
In order to inform future management and development of the Weir Pool, a community owned and run amenity in Thomastown, Kilkenny, we set out to identify and map what is already valued about this place, through a long term collaborative and inclusive creative process
(Summer 2022-Spring 2023).
We decided to work with themes of celebration and gratitude, naming the project: We ❤️ Weir Pool.
We engaged various users of the Weir Pool in creative activities which allowed us to surface deep responses to the question,
‘What do you love about the Weir Pool?’
Jeffrey Gormly and Amelia Caulfield, on behalf of Thomastown Community River Trust, 2023
As part of the We ♥ Weir Pool project, we hosted a picnic for regular swimmers where we asked people to imagine what a goddess of the Weir Pool would be like, and how, if the Weir Pool could speak for itself, it might imagine its own goddess.
We hosted a super for veterans of Mind the Gap and we asked them to speak as wise elders, as the oracles or prophets of the goddess of the Weir Pool, and tell us about the values they felt were active in the process of creating and maintaining the Weir Pool.
We also held a public engagement session in Thomastown and launched a public survey which received over 200 responses, giving invaluable insight into how, when and why people visit the Weir Pool, and what they feel are the most important things to protect about the space.
This process culminated in March 2023 with an exhibition publicly sharing and displaying the outcomes of this project, to learn more about the exhibition, click here.