Friday 19th September 2025
Location: Tea Houses, Bateman Quay, Kilkenny
‘beyond, beneath, Beside’ explores the site of the Tea Houses and their proximity to the River Nore and its nearby tributary the River Breagagh. During her residency, artist Kate Fahey investigated the locale, including Talbot’s Inch model arts and crafts village, the former Greenvale Woollen Mills, and engaged with the rich subterranean, cultural and industrial history associated with the rivers, including the great flood in 1947.
Drawing on materials, forms and motifs relevant to the historical arts and crafts revival in Kilkenny, the installation positions the neighbouring River Breagagh (translates as the deceitful river) as a swirling, twisting and uneasy presence, a trickster figure, liable to rise and surge unpredictably. Situating tactile encounters with the material world at the centre of this inquiry, the exhibition poetically echoes a sense of networked and interconnected resonances across time and space, situated beyond, beneath and beside the riverbank.
Curated by Rachel Botha.
Organisers Website