X-PO

Activating a public space for knowledge exchange, questioning and conversations.

X-PO was opened as a public art project in December 2007 in the former post office in Kilnaboy North Clare. the space was given over to certain events; exhibitions that dealt with the complexities of rural life, clubs and groups on a weekly basis, talks and exchanges about local knowledge and genealogy. The post office building was a familiar space and the intention was to encourage a collective reflection on the value of local knowledge and the changing face of rural society.

The primary objective of the project was that X-PO become a self-sustaining social and cultural space. Public meetings were held with the intention of creating a structure that would actively involve newcomers and locals. Re-opening the post office has stimulated discussion on how to maintain an active, inclusive, social community whilst remaining in contact with the knowledge and sense of place that comes from reflexive consideration and involvement with the locality. More than a decade later X-PO continues to function, run by volunteers. 

Projects:

The Mattie Rynne Archive: An installation and temporary archive of objects found in the rural post office belonging to the former postmaster when it reopened as X-PO.

The Killinaboy Mapping Group: A collection of oral histories, local narratives, and aspects of material culture from the area now accessible on the group’s dedicated website.

The Rinnamona Research Group: An alternative perspective on Rinnamona in the 1930s by the descendants of those represented in the the social anthropological strand of the Harvard Irish Survey (1930-1936).

The Peter Rees Archive: A collection of photographs of the communities and history of Kilnaboy.

Texts on X-PO:

O’Mahony New Ecologies between Art and Rural Life

Searching For A Place in Common Michaele Cutaya on X-PO

Folk Radio artist Tom Flanagan interview with Deirdre O’Mahony X-PO Folk Radio project, 2020

Funded with generous support from a Arts Council Project Award and SuperValu