February’s hugely successful Kilkenny Animated festival illuminated the cartoon city with a comprehensive visual storytelling showcase.
A vivid celebration of cartoons, animation and illustration, Kilkenny Animated’s series of exhibitions, talks, performances and workshops saw the city sing with unparalleled creativity and craft during the festival’s inaugural edition in February 2018.
The Kilkenny Animated schedule also represented many of the Creative Ireland Programme’s founding values. From developing meaningful community engagement to motivating and inspiring the country’s youth; showcasing Kilkenny as a real nerve centre for artistic excellence, as well as the city’s place as a flagship location for animation and industry luminaries.
The programme’s impressive roster of over 40 international and home-grown speakers and contributors included editor-in-chief of The Comics Journal and a co-founder of Fantagraphics Books Gary Groth, New Yorker illustrator and Dreamworks animator Carter Goodrich and legendary French artist Tomi Ungerer – the first ever living artist to have a museum dedicated to their life and work in France.
Hosted by twice Academy Award-nominated animation studio Cartoon Saloon, the Kilkenny-based studio’s CEO Paul Young explained some of the motivation behind the February event: “We really wanted to bring people to see the likes of Tomi Ungerer and Peter de Sève and introduce more of the general public to these brilliant individual storytellers, cartoonists, illustrators and animators.”
“It’s for everybody” explained Festival Director Naoise Nunn when summing up the visual event’s broad appeal and brimming attendance. Get a taste for the festival’s all-ages ethos and compelling contributors for yourself, watch the festival videos featured abov
