Cork's Quay Co-Op to launch new gallery space 

One of Cork’s most important and best loved social enterprises is expanding its range of services.

For over four decades, the Quay Co-op on Sullivan’s Quay has been at the heart of social justice advocacy in the city, campaigning from the start for women’s rights, LGBT rights, and environmental justice.

Beginning as a community co-operative during the bleak days of the early 1980s, it soon became home to Cork’s first vegetarian and vegan cafe and restaurant, a food co-op, a women’s centre, a creche, and a bookshop.

Now the Quay Co-op has expanded its bookshop and is opening a new gallery space on the ground floor this weekend.

From tomorrow, the co-op will hold a two-day market in the building, which will host around 10 stalls, among them Bauhaus, Miss Daisy Blue, the Nu Moon tailoring service, and several other local outlets.

Eve O’Riordan, who is part of the co-operative, said the market would be a hive of activity over the weekend.

“There will be a record sale here, there will be jewellery for sale, crocheted goods, there’ll be a jewellery workshop, so plenty to keep people occupied,” said Eve.

This evening will see the launch of the Quay Co-op’s new gallery, and with it an exhibition, Morning Veil, by two young Cork artists, both of whom are recent graduates of MTU Crawford College of Art and Design.

Leslie Allen Spillane works primarily in lens-based media using a variety of alternative photographic techniques and printmaking. Her interests are in environmentally sustainable photographic processes and the relationship between the human and natural world.

Jonathan Stack’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses drawing, painting, print, lasercut technology, and artificial intelligence. His work explores Irish and queer identity through examining the idea of ritual and rites of passage in rural settings.

The exhibition launches at 7pm this evening.