In celebration of its 25th anniversary, Joseph Walsh Studio has announced an exciting series of new works and upcoming projects around the globe throughout 2024. The events will occur in tandem with the firm’s continuing development of its Fartha campus, home to major architectural collaborations and to Making In, its annual gathering of world-renowned creative voices in a celebration of making.
In April, Making In will continue its global expansion, premiering the first film of a documentary series by internationally acclaimed Irish filmmaker Pat Collins at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in Paris.
Summer 2024 sees the opening of a brand-new gallery space, with a 25th Anniversary exhibition showcasing both recent and archival work, along with a focus on process and material. By hosting exhibitions, Joseph Walsh Studio continues to position Fartha as an international hub for designers, makers and passionate craftsmen.
In the fall of 2024, coinciding with two major moments in the art and design calendar – Paris Design Week in September, Paris+ par Art Basel and Design/Miami Paris in October – Joseph Walsh Studio will present a cultural exhibition focused on the studio’s processes at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris and at another location in Paris. This will see the presentation of three monumental outdoor Sculptures and an original exhibition in dialogue with the Irish major ceramic artist and longtime friend of the Studio, Sara Flynn.
25th Anniversary Exhibition
Since its establishment, Joseph Walsh Studio has collaborated with world-renowned architects and artists to push the boundaries of craftsmanship into the realm of art. For example, Joseph Walsh Studio and Irish architects John Tuomey and Sheila O’Donnell have collaborated on a series of studies, creating objects in stone and wood that are both functional furniture and architectural sculptural forms. These include DiaDiMo – Wood Vessel, 2012; DiaDiMo – Falling Dansu, 2012 and The Unfinished Museum, 2018, which will be documented at the exhibition, along with a spring 2014 collaboration with painter Ed Miliano who worked on a mural in the 18th century Irish farmhouse in Fartha. Outside, next to the pavilions designed in collaboration with O’Donnell + Tuomey architects, two monumental Bronze Magnus will be exhibited before being shown at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris. In the original Workshop building, an archive space will replicate the Paris Process exhibition. The studio will also present a brand-new site-specific project.
The Rambling Houses: New Pavilion Project designed by O’Donnell + Tuomey at Fartha.
The Rambling Houses are three experimental structures at Fartha. Built using locally sourced materials, they champion the use of local skills. Traditionally, in Ireland, rambling house were places where the local community, and passers-by, gathered to tell stories, play music and be entertained and informed.
Passage House, 2022
Passage House is the first of a series of three pavilions built on site at Fartha. This experimental structure explores traditional methods of making using Irish vernacular materials – stone, timber and thatch – in a contemporary context. Using local material, built by local craftspeople, it stands at a point of convergence on the path between the Joseph Walsh Design Studio and Workshop; a place of pause, somewhere to slow down and admire the folding landscape of fields and hedges.
The Stone Vessel, 2023
The Stone Vessel was completed on site at Fartha in 2023 and is the second pavilion in the series. It is a faceted structure, a shrine-like gathering house, chamfered at its corners and sharply angled in its outline against the sky. Created by hand, stone on stone, by local stonemasons, it is built within the limitations of available material. The walls are made of fieldstone quarried out of the immediate site while locally sourced harder limestone was used for quoins and lintels.
New Pavilion Project in 2024
In 2024, Joseph Walsh Studio will unveil the third Pavilion in the series. A sunken theatre, it is inspired by roman construction methods and will be a place to gather, to contemplate and meditate.
Head to the Joseph Walsh Studio website to see a full list of planned events.
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