The Arts Council intends to tender for a panel of Creative Associates to support the delivery of the Scoileanna Ildánacha/Creative Schools from the academic year 2020-21 onwards for a period of up to 5 years. The Arts council will publish relevant tender documents within the next few months.

This is an opportunity for artists, creative practitioners and individuals working in organisations in the arts and cultural sector. Creative Schools is led by the Arts Council in partnership with the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. It is a flagship initiative of the Creative Ireland Programme to enable the creative potential of every child.

For more information about the role of Creative Associates, the application form from the previous year please go to: artscouncil.ie/Creative-Schools/…

Creative Associates are artists, creative practitioners and/or educators with an understanding of the arts and creativity and its potential to transform the lives of children and young people. Creative Associates will match the needs of schools to arts and creative opportunities in their locality. They will identify potential areas for improvement and will inspire, energise and drive schools forward in addressing these. Through this pioneering initiative Creative Associates will have the chance to shape the place of the arts and creativity in Irish schools.

Creative Associates come from a range of creative professions, such as artists, designers and craftspeople or those working in mediums used for the purpose of creative or interpretative expression. Whether from the arts, culture, heritage, creative industries, science or other sectors, they challenge, support and sustain new practice in the field of the arts, culture and creative learning.

There are three types of Creative Associate:

1. Teachers: fully qualified and currently working in a Department of Education and Skills-sanctioned post and who are applying for a contract of service in the form of an agreement of work between themselves and the Arts Council/Creative Schools.

2. Individuals: working on a freelance basis in the arts/creative sectors and who are applying for a contract for services between themselves as individuals and the Arts Council/Creative Schools.

3. Organisations: working in the arts/creative sectors and which are applying for a contract for services between the organisation and the Arts Council/Creative Schools. In their applications, organisations must nominate one representative, who currently delivers services for them, to deliver CA services if successful. Organisations can nominate up to five representatives to deliver services. Each application must be made separately. Representatives cannot share a CA role.

The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) have announced highlights of its 2020 programme which includes solo exhibitions by Bharti Kher, Christodoulos Panayioutou, Paula Rego and Eva Rothschild; a major international group exhibition Xenogenesis by The Otolith Group and an exhibition from the IMMA Collection Ghosts From the Recent Past. The IMMA Collection: Freud Project will be accompanied by a response by Chantel Joffee to Lucian Freud’s portraits.

The first major exhibition Ghosts From the Recent Past explores how urgencies of the recent past continue to inhabit the present. Framed by key political events over the recent past it focuses on artworks from the IMMA Collection, including a major donation from the Kerlin Gallery, from the 1980s to the present. This exhibition can be seen as part of a series of major collection displays which will open at IMMA over the next three years, combining the IMMA collection and other international collections all established in the 1990’s as the beginning of the contemporary Global moment and will bring Irish practice in dialogue with other innovative artistic centres and collections throughout the world.

This summer a major retrospective of the work of renowned Portuguese artist Paula Rego, Obedience and Defiance, spans Rego’s entire career from the 1960s, comprising more than 80 works, including paintings that have never been seen before and works on paper from the artist’s family and close friends.

Opening in the autumn The Otolith Group: Xenogenesis presents a cross section of artworks from 2011 to 2018 by The Otolith Group; the artist’s collective with Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun. Xenogenesis weaves together many strands of imaginative speculation on deep pasts and possible futures.

Chantal Joffe has been invited to engage with Lucian Freud’s portraits of his mother, Lucie Brasch in Lucie and Daryll: Chantal Joffe looking at Lucian Freud. The investigation will centre around two of Freud’s most outstanding portraits of his mother which form part of the IMMA Collection: Freud Project (2016-2021).

Other solo exhibitions showing throughout the year include Bharti Kher whose art gives form to quotidian life and its daily rituals in a way that reassesses and transforms their meaning to yield an air of magical realism.
Christodoulos Panayioutou’s exhibition will engage with the history of IMMA’s building and site. His research-based practice focusses on the identification and uncovering of hidden narratives in the visual records of history and time.
IMMA is also delighted to present The Shrinking Universe by Eva Rothschild which was first shown as the national representation of Ireland at the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2019.

The final exhibition of the year from the David Kronn Collection entitled Borders will reflect on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The exhibition includes work by the Magnum Agency, Evelyn Hofer, Paul Caponigro, Roger Mayne, Rosalind Solomon, Paul Seawright and Donovan Wylie.

IMMA and EVA International (Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art) are excited to announce a new commissioning partnership for 2020. This partnership will see two of Ireland’s most significant contemporary arts organisations work together on a major artistic production.

www.imma.ie

Headford Lace Project are delighted to announce that Fiona Harrington has been appointed as curator for our international lace exhibition which will be held in Headford in late 2020. They are thrilled to be working with such an internationally renowned artist who has traditional lace making skills at the heart of her practice. We are very excited about Fiona’s vision for the exhibition and the many possibilities offered by this collaboration.

Fiona Harrington said:
“I am excited to be working with the Headford Lace Project in developing this exhibition.
My vision for the show is to provide a platform for those working with handmade lace to share their work with the public and to highlight the incredible skills of lacemakers around the world.
The tradition of making lace by hand has been practiced for generations. In recent years however, there has been a surge of interest in these processes. Artists, designers and lacemakers are not only interested in preserving these skills through mastering technical understanding, but they also wish to push the boundaries of what lace is and what lace is considered to be.
The Headford Lace Project exhibition will be an opportunity to bring these ideas together and showcase the future of lacemaking in Ireland and further afield.”

This project is funded by Galway 2020 as part of the Small Towns Big Ideas Programme
For information on Fiona Harrington please see www.fionaharrington.com

The Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan, T.D. has announced the appointment to the Arts Council of Teresa Buczkowska for a 5 year term to November 2024.

Ms Buczkowska has wide experience in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion. She works as the Integration and Anti-racism Coordinator at the Immigrant Council of Ireland and has led the delivery of many comprehensive anti-racism projects that range from training and research, to advocacy and campaigning.

There is a statutory gender balance on the Arts Council, which requires a minimum of 6 men and 6 women. With this appointment the Council retains its compliment of 7 men and 6 women.

Commenting on the appointment, Minister Madigan said:

“I am delighted to appoint Teresa, a candidate of such high calibre and congratulate her on her appointment. She will bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to her role, not least from her time as Integration Team Coordinator at the Immigrant Council of Ireland. I wish her the very best during her term and thank her for taking on this very important role”.
artscouncil.ie/home/

An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD announced €2.5 million in Government funding today for a flagship research project led by Trinity College Dublin which will digitally recreate seven centuries of historical records of the Public Record Office of Ireland destroyed by fire at Dublin’s Four Courts at the beginning of the Irish Civil War. Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury research project, creating an all-island and international legacy for the Decade of Centenaries

The destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland, at the Four Courts, on 30th June 1922 was a devastating cultural loss. While not comparable with the loss of human life, it was one of the great tragedies of the Civil War.

The Beyond 2022: Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury research project is an exciting all-island and international collaborative project. It seeks to re-imagine and re-create, through virtual reality, this national treasure and the archival collections that were lost, comprising records of seven centuries of Irish history, genealogy and administration.

This is the first time that the project’s 5 core archival partners – the National Archives of Ireland, The National Archives UK, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the Irish Manuscripts Commission and the Library of Trinity College Dublin – have formally collaborated on a shared enterprise, although they have longstanding historical connections.

The project is supported by the Irish Government, through a capital grant funding allocation of €2.5 million from the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, under Project Ireland 2040.

The first phase of the research project funded by the Irish Research Council was led by historian, Dr. Peter Crooks, and computer scientist, the late Dr Séamus Lawless of ADAPT, the SFI-funded Research Centre. It identified over 200 volumes of transcripts suitable for enhanced digitisation, now scattered between archives in the United States, the United Kingdom and archives on the island of Ireland. These handwritten records contain more than 25 million words from documents destroyed in 1922.

With this exciting new funding announcement, the project will create a Virtual Record Treasury and reunite for the first time in a century, thousands of stories of life, law, land and loss in Ireland’s history.

The primary outcome from Phase II will be a fully immersive, three-dimensional, virtual reality model of the digitally reconstructed Public Record Office of Ireland, which will be launched in June 2022 to mark the centenary of the fire. This model will be used as an interactive tool for engagement and research, whereby visitors will be able to browse the virtual shelves and link to substitute or salvaged records held by archives and libraries around the world.

Dr Patrick Prendergast, Provost of Trinity College Dublin said:
“Beyond 2022 is an historic landmark international research collaboration combining historical research, archival discovery and technical innovation. Trinity’s leading historians and computer scientists have come together in this ground-breaking interdisciplinary research project at scale which has the potential of rewriting Irish history across the past millennium. It will provide a lasting and meaningful legacy democratising access to invaluable records and archives across Ireland and the World.”

beyond2022.ie/

King Ping Pong announces its 2018 inter-art-organisation table tennis tournament was won by Barry Lynch for Dublin City Council Arts Office.

Sixteen competitors battled it out at the tournament, which was held on 29th November in Pallas Projects, Dublin and in addition to the championship table, included a custom-made krazy table by artist Dáire McEvoy.

Lynch beat last year’s champion Paraic Leahy (for Friary House) in the final.

daveymoor.com/king-ping-pong/

Winners Roll
2019 – Barry Lynch for DCC Arts Office
2018 – Paraic Leahy for RHA (Tony O’Malley Residency)
2017 – Jerome O Drisceoil for Green on Red
2016 – Will Curtis for Project Arts Centre
2015 – Peter Prendergast for Monster Truck
2014 – Nick Miller for Rubicon
2013 – Mark Durkan for Solstice
2012 – Peter Prendergast for Monster Truck

picture caption: Barry Lynch
credit: Davey Moor

The LAB Gallery at Dublin City Arts Office in partnership with IADT are pleased to announce Róisín Power Hackett as the recipient of their inaugural ARC-LAB Gallery Curatorial Scholarship. This award is unique in the context of curatorial education at postgraduate level. The ARC-LAB Scholar will work with the Curator of the LAB Gallery on programming and research into curatorial strategies and develop a self-initiated curatorial project at the LAB Gallery. The ARC-LAB Scholar will be funded as a full-time student on the IADT MA in Art and Research Collaboration (ARC), which is an 18-month practical Masters programme taught in the LAB. The outcome of their curatorial project will be presented in the LAB Gallery as part of the gallery’s public events programme in 2021.

The ARC-LAB Gallery Curatorial Scholarship award comprises a stipend of EUR15,000 and MA tuition fees of EUR6,000. The ARC-LAB Scholar will have a dedicated desk and research space in Dublin City Arts Office, mentorship and professional guidance from The LAB Gallery, and research supervision from IADT.

ARC co-directors Maeve Connolly and Sinead Hogan are delighted to celebrate this new initiative, which represents a deepening of the long-standing partnership between IADT and the LAB-DCC and a significant expansion of resources for postgraduate curatorial research in Ireland. The scholarship founded on respect for collaboration and institutional partnership, supports the development of new, critical and experimental perspectives in curatorial practice.

“We are pleased to be working with IADT to build on our partnership of over a decade supporting emerging artists, student learning and co-producing visual arts events for audiences in the City. This new curatorial scholarship is unique in Dublin and allows us to provide a professional learning experience for a student who is developing research that will inform future public programmes, in Róisín’s case, particularly looking at how we better consider arts and disability in our exhibitions and events.”
– Sheena Barrett, Curator of the LAB Gallery and Assistant Arts Officer Dublin City Council

“On behalf of the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire, I am delighted to announce the launch of the inaugural Curatorial Scholarship which is a partnership between the Art and Research Collaboration, ARC MA in IADT, and the LAB Gallery (Dublin City Arts Office). This is a unique partnership, which provides a postgraduate ARC MA scholar the opportunity to work with the LAB Gallery in the context of contemporary curatorial education, practices and programming. The recipient of this Curatorial Scholarship will be a full-time, fully funded student on the MA in Art and Research Collaboration at IADT which is an 18 month practical master’s programme taught in the LAB.”
– Tina Kinsella, Head of Department of Design + Visual Arts, Faculty of Film, Art and Creative Technologies at the Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology

iadt.ie/…/roisin-power-hackett

Public Art Now is an exciting new conference exploring the changing landscape of Public Art now and in the coming decades.

Public Art comprises a varied set of art practices. It provides opportunities for collective participation and self-expression, historical reflection and community dialogue. It contributes to our social, spatial and political topologies by proposing new social models, enhancing physical infrastructure and engaging with design. As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, human–and non-human animals, face unprecedented environmental and social challenges. The present geological epoch of the Anthropocene, unchecked globalisation and resurgent nationalistic forces, provide new contexts through which to consider Public Arts role in society. Within this context, the Public Art Now Conference will explore alternative ways to articulate the diversity of arts practice and the complexity of our social, physical and natural environments.

The Public Art Now conference will be located at TU Dublin’s city campus, Grangegorman – Ireland’s largest single investment in higher education in the last 50 years. The campus, in part situated on the grounds of the former St Brendan’s hospital is central to the development of a vibrant new city quarter that is sensitive to the context of Grangegorman, its’ surrounding neighbourhoods and existing community. This location informs our considerations of Public Art, which often acts as a barometer for thinking critically about the relationships between Public Art practice, policy and its publics.

As such, the Public Art Now conference is structured by three key themes:
• Public Art: Processes and Politics
• Public Art in the Anthropocene
• Ecologies of Space and Place

Public Art Now will invite participants to think ambitiously about the contexts, roles and prospects for Public Art, now and in the coming decades.

Full details of how to register, and how to submit a proposal for the conference will follow shortly at publicartnow.eu or please contact publicartnow@tudublin.ie with any queries.

Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan TD, has announced a capital grant of €183,500 for work associated with the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.

The current Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) plant at the Gallery needs substantial investment to ensure that it will meet the operational requirements for a National Cultural Institution. The Minister noted that the capital grant would enable the Gallery to continue its wide-ranging exhibition programme which has proven so successful with audiences.

The Minister and her Department have been working in partnership with Crawford Art Gallery in relation to the development of the building as set out in the Department’s Project 2040 Plan.
Earlier this year the Minister approved the preliminary appraisal as required under the Public Spending Code and this has enabled Crawford Art Gallery to commence work on the preparation of a detailed appraisal / business case for the project.

crawfordartgallery.ie/

Dunboyne artist Annabel Potterton has been announced as the overall winner of the 2019 Solstice Visual Arts Award at the opening of the eight annual SURVEYOR exhibition on Saturday 8 November. Solstice Arts Centre invited artists from or living in County Meath to submit artworks of all disciplines for inclusion in the open exhibition, which presents an overview of living visual arts practice throughout the county and is the largest of its kind in the northeast region. This year SURVEYOR was selected by Kevin Kavanagh of the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Dublin. As part of the award, Annabel won a €2,000 bursary to contribute towards her continued practice within the visual arts field.

The winning pieces are from Annabel’s Border Candy series of work, which are created using the ‘alla prima’ technique, in that they are created in one sitting to keep a freshness of stroke and colour. Talking about the piece, Annabel described it as “an exploration of the herbaceous border; a process of indulgence combining the joy of growing a garden and a compulsion to paint, particularly with oils. Through the daily practice of “doing”, painting becomes habitual and not having to agonise over subject matter delivers, for me, a glow of happiness in pure painterly pleasure.”

Annabel sits on the committee of The Connolly Collective, which serves to make a link between arts and health in Connolly Hospital and runs creative workshops with residents in the Silver Birch Unit who are living with advanced dementia. This experience has influenced Annabel’s new body of work, all about being in the moment and taking every opportunity to enjoy the process of painting using material that is around her.
SURVEYOR runs at Solstice Arts Centre until Friday 10th January 2020, Tuesday – Saturday, 11:00am – 4:00pm and entry to the exhibition is free.

Doris Salcedo was named the winner of the inaugural Nomura Art Award, which will be given annually to one artist. The million-dollar prize is the largest cash prize in contemporary visual art, and is meant to allow an artist of major cultural significance to work on an ambitious project they didn’t previously have the resources to realise.

Orlaith McBride has been named as the new Director of the National Archives. She succeeds Mr. John McDonough who served in the post prior to taking on the post of Director of Library Services at DCU.

Orlaith McBride has been the Director of the Arts Council since 2011. During her time as Director she delivered the Arts Council’s commemorations programme in 2016, the national programme during Ireland’s presidency of the EU in 2013, introduced a new strategy for the arts in Ireland, Making Great Art Work 2016-2025 as well as leading out of many strategic initiatives and partnerships most notably with Local Authorities, other cultural institutions, state agencies as well as leading the Creative Schools Programme as part of Creative Ireland.

Prior to this appointment, she worked in the arts for many years across a broad range of organisations including Local Authorities, the voluntary sector, education and theatre.

Speaking on Wednesday Josepha Madigan T.D., Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, has welcomed the announcement and said:

“Orlaith McBride brings a wealth of knowledge and experience along with her passion and commitment to this important role particularly from her role as Director of the Arts Council for almost a decade. This is a very exciting period for the National Archives. Along with its €24 million development of a new Archival Repository, the National Archives must also prepare for the challenges of collection in the modern digital age. It will also be major partner in key projects under the Decade of Centenaries Commemorations Programme. I wish Orlaith every success in her new role.”