THE hugely popular Ewe experience in Glengarriff, the country’s only interactive and interpretative sculpture garden, is to close at the end of August.
Kurt Lyndorf, a former war correspondent originally from Denmark, and Sheena Wood, an artist originally from the UK, have run the unique attraction for the past 32 years and say it’s time for them to explore new opportunities.
‘We want to go out at a time when we still love The Ewe,’ said Sheena who admitted that making the decision to close and sell up was a very difficult one.
‘When we started out we thought we’d only do this for a decade or so, but it’s been more than three! We’ve been ruminating it for a while but we’ve lots of other ideas that we want to try,’ she said.
The property at Tooreen, including their three-storey passive solar house called Falling Water Lodge, is now up for sale, with a guiding price of €975,000.
The couple intend to maintain a local base and among the other things they plan to pursue is environmental design consultancy.
They arrived in Ireland in 1993 from Costa Rica, where Kurt was the Latin America correspondent for a Danish newspaper covering the dangerous conflicts of the Falklands, then the Middle East, and finally South America.
‘It was quite wild’ remembers Sheena, who said it was a desire for ‘something gentler’ that brought them to West Cork.
‘One thing you find out as a war correspondent is how disconnected the world is, so we wanted a project that involved learning and connection and we had to come to Ireland to find a spot for that experience,’ she said.
They first settled in Goleen where they ran the original Ewe experience, and moved to Glengarriff 10 years later having found a site suitable to expand the attraction.
Visitors get to explore the natural world through interactive art and inspiring sculpture as well as a science and poetry trail.
‘When we first started out people weren’t really that into nature, and this was regarded as a bit “green.” But our idea was to make the experience fun and engaging, with a lot of humour, to make it playfully philosophical. It really doesn’t matter where your interests lie, as this engages everyone and is a chance to enjoy nature. The information boards are really secondary, people hoover up what they can,’ she said.
Currently the couple are busy preparing for a new exhibition called ‘The Ewe Goes to the City’, which opens upstairs in Quay Co-Op on Sullivan’s Quay in early September.
‘Many unseen textiles, ceramics, paintings and surprises will be on show. Some pieces have been specially created for the exhibition, and all proceeds from sales will go to Gaza,’ said Sheena.
The property is in a private nature reserve and Sheena said it would work as a private home, or ‘for just about anything.’
‘What’s nice about it is that it can be taken as it is, or reinvented. All we want is for whoever buys it to love it as much as we did, and have their own dream for it,’ she said.
West Cork will always be home for the couple, says Sheena, regardless of their future plans, and she insists they’re not retiring.
‘We adore it here. Kurt is Danish and I grew up in the south of England but most of my family are in Ireland. You could say I’ve been marinating here all my life!’
It will be a nostalgic and emotional summer, she admits.
‘We had wee tots come to us, who are now returning with their grandchildren. It’s a multi-generational attraction. It will be a hugging summer, and an emotional one, and we’ll make the most of it.’
The Ewe will open on June 21st for its last season, with lots of new features for its final summer, before it closes at the end of August.
