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This event is held in collaboration with eva International
Special thanks to Limerick School of Art and Design

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Layout of the day

Welcome: VAI CEO Noel Kelly will outline the format of the day and also provide details into VAI’s current advocacy work. We will outline VAI’s current work, and ways that you can help the arts in your local area and potentially contribute to the various national campaigns. This will be supported by lots of opportunities to find out more information from fellow artists and other attendees on the day.

The Common Room Café

The central hub will be The Common Room Cafe which will host information tables from a wide spectrum of organisations, including the Arts Council, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Artists Studios Network Ireland (ASNI), O'Driscoll O'Neill Insurance, IVARO, CREATE, Artquest (London), Crawford Gallery, Limerick City Council, Limerick City Gallery, The Gallery of Photography, NIVAL, and many others.  The Common Room Cafe will be set up to allow you to sit and discuss issues or find out more from the presenters on the day.

Strand 1: Briefings and Discursiveness

Empty Spaces (Mary Conlon)

Building upon the experience to date of successful empty space project, this session will look at what the future holds and how we can prepare now for the challenges that lie ahead

Legal, Contracts (John King, Ivor Fitzpatrick and Co)

An ever popular subject that will look at the real experience of artists working in an industry where written contracts are rare, and how artists can protect themselves when things start to go wrong.

Presenting yourself (Kerry McCall)

Successful people believe their success is attributable to a pattern of mutually beneficial interpersonal relationships, as much as it is due to technical skills or business knowledge. This session will look at some key tips that can be applied across a variety of situation.

Working with what you’ve got (Neva Elliott)

Like diving from a cliff the first time, working as an artist can be quite daunting. In VAI we often hear members complain that they live in isolation. This session will look at key tips and suggestions on how to develop on your skills and how to survive in the local context.

New Media Tips (Mary Carty)

Using social media can seem daunting, overwhelming and full of potential pitfalls. There is a way, though, to make the best use of social media. Find out more about avoiding the traps of lost privacy and tips and start your journey into social media and how to make social media productive for you.

Copyright & Legacy Planning (Arthur Cox Representative)

Protect your work now and when you are gone. We will offer some key points for consideration; looking at the area of protecting your work and giving some surprising points for you to consider when planning for what happens to you work when you are gone.

Working Abroad (Russell Martin & Nick Kaplony)

As the economic situation gets more and more grim in this country, many artists and administrators are giving serious thought to the possibility of working abroad where the financial climate might be healthier. Others are considering sending work to abroad to take advantage of foreign markets and exposure. To do this can also involve difficult legal, financial, political and administrative problems. This session will offer some quick tips on how to prepare.

Curating Not for Profit Spaces: Towards a balanced programming (Sheena Barrett with Alice Maher and Patrick T Murphy)

Exploring a current International curatorial trend, the session will look at how curators can work with and present the work of artists who range across a broad spectrum of experience and practices.

Strand 2: A Printed Project Symposium: Critical Writing: Future modes of engagement (Fiona Fullam, James Merrigan, Fergal Gaynor, Adrian Duncan)

As we see a rise in new methods of engagement such as online blogs, twitter, personal websites and resurgence in self published zines and journals. We want to look at the future and importance of discourse surrounding visual arts practice and exhibition. We are inviting a range of artists, curators and critics who are currently working in this area to come and have open discussions about their experience to date, and what they see as the future of this vital and immediate form of critical writing. During the day we will announce details of this year’s critical writing award, a partnership of Dublin City Arts Office and Visual Artists Ireland.

Strand 3: Academia: Exploring topics under consideration within academic programmes.

We have invited Siun Hanrahan (National College of Art & Design); Suzanne Bosch (Ulster University) and Sean Taylor and Paul Tarpey (Limerick School of Art and Design LIT) (Limerick School of Art and Design LIT) to come and open for discussion three topics that are current within their respective programes.

Details of these topics will be confirmed shortly.

Strand 4: Skills in Community based practice (Organised by CREATE)

Create Ireland, the National Development agency for collaborative arts in social and community contexts, will be leading an exciting learning opportunity for Artists interested in collaborative working models, as part of the Gathering in Limerick. The principle aim of the Create Salons will be to explore the nuances and complexities of different aspects of collaborative arts practice and the processes involved. We will examine questions of authorship and agency, the variations and overlaps that can take place within participatory practices engaged with social issues and exchange.

The day will be broken down into three interactive sessions led by a guest facilitator and expert in each field. We will present case studies, create opportunities for interrogation and work as a collective to gain a fuller understanding of the various modes of collaborations; their characteristics and the skills required of artists to negotiate each.

1. Collaborative arts – Communities as source material – Inspiration and process in source material (Lynnette Moran)

Looking at the core values that run through this approach with emphasis on openness, negotiation. How do you reflect source material and the contribution of those who inspire the work but have little or no part in its creation?

2. Collaborative arts, = Communities as co-creators – Equitable relations and equality in co creation of new work (Katherine Atkinson)

3. Collaborative arts – Communities as activators – Work that depends on a level of audience interaction to be brought to life.  Expectation encouraging interactivity, invisible barriers, accessibility. (Ailbhe Murphy)

Each workshop in Strand 4 will be approx 90 minutes long. Further details on www.create-ireland.ie

Visual Arts Programme

As GET TOGETHER 2012 coincides with the last days of the Limerick School of Art and Design degree show, EVA, and EVA’s fringe events, there will be a chance to see the vibrancy of art practice in Limerick. This year’s eva International, curated by Annie Fletcher, Curator of Exhibitions at the Van Abbe museum, Eindhoven, takes the title After the Future to examine how certain artistic practices provide an active invocation of the present and speculate how we arrived here in the first place. Subject to numbers, there will be a guided tour of EVA by EVA Director Woodrow Kernohan and his team.

Artists, Curators & Directors Networking Event

To conclude the day, Visual Artists Ireland would like to invite you to a drinks reception during which there will be opportunities to meet with artists, curators and directors of visual artists institutions for an informal chat.  Based on a successful event run in Galway, we suggest that you can use this as a good opportunity to apply the tips that you will have received earlier in the day in the Presenting Yourself session.

Visual Artists Ireland: The GET TOGETHER draw

As part of the event, Visual Artists Ireland will have a prize draw for a work by the late Eamonn O'Doherty. His Anna Livia on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, colloquially known as the Floozie in the Jacuzzi, became a controversial work in the history of public art in Dublin.  Originally placed in O'Connell Street, the bronze figure was removed in 2002 and reinstated, without the fountain, near Heuston Station earlier in 2011.  We have been very lucky to obtain an original sketch for the Anna Livia sculpture which we will have as a grand prize for the draw.  Due to the importance of the work we are making things a little more complicated than normal.

1. People who buy tickets for the event and who are present on the day will have then names put into the draw. Additional tickets may be purchased separately;
2. People who do not buy tickets for the event but wish to take part in the draw can buy tickets separately.

Ticket Prices for the event.

As always we endeavour to subsidise the cost of attending our events to make them affordable.  Therefore, we are able to provide the scale of this unmissable event at the following rates:

Republic of Ireland Members

Standard Rate (After 6th May 2012) - VAI Member Rate: €30

                   Standard Rate (After 6th May 2012) - Non-Member Rate: €50

Northern Ireland Members - Sterling Bookings through our Northern Ireland Website

Standard Rate (After 6th May 2012) - VAI Member Rate: £27

                 Standard Rate (After 6th May 2012) - Non-Member Rate: £45

Based on numbers, we hope to run coaches from Belfast and Derry.  The charge for this will be £10.

                 Please be aware that if we don't get sufficient numbers that we will be unable to offer this service.

Prize Draw Tickets

Ticket Price: €20 or £18 with an early bird discount for those bought before 6th May 2012

Transport & Accommodation

We have timed the event to fit both train and bus schedules.  We are in discussion with local hotels about a specific discounted rate should you wish to stay over night in Limerick. More details of this will be provided later.