Samhain

For this year’s Awakening the Walls 2021 CCA Derry~Londonderry has invited artist Shannon Patterson to produce a new animation in response to the festival themes of Samhain, spirit worlds and folklore. This new commission is projected from the City Walls onto the front of the CCA building on Artillery Street each evening for the duration of the Halloween weekend. In the accompanying booklet you can find out more about some of the symbols and characters featuring in Shannon’s work written by the artist herself.

The animation is a response to the ideas of Samhain by Shannon based on her fascination with the festival, her knowledge of Celtic Mythology and her research on the history of Halloween. Shannon is becoming known for her unique illustrations and animations inspired by folklore, magic and mythology. Shannon says of her work, “I was raised at the knee with folklore stories by my mother, who grew up on Dernish Island, Lough Erne in County Fermanagh - having told her of how her family regularly encountered the ghosts of soldiers, and Trooping Fairies, upon the many Islands of their mysterious Lough. Though some of this folklore actually predates ‘Celts’ and the term Celts is one widely theorized and disputed - for the sake of simplicity I will address the information as one of Celtic heritage. As ‘Celts’ mostly just refers to the people of old Gaelic languages across these Islands, and our own cultural stories and traditions have been remarkably preserved - all thanks to our Irish language speakers of the past, and present. Go raibh maith agaitbh”

If you see the animations over the duration of the festival, share them with us on our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. On all our platforms we are @CCADLD. #DerryHalloween

It will be visible on the front of CCA at 10–12 Artillery Street each day from Friday 29–Sunday 31 October 2021, 5pm–10pm. The gallery will also be open until 10pm giving you the chance to see our current exhibition Tilt [At Windmills].