This programme strand emphasised collaboration, inclusivity and diversity and was created specifically for the ART:2023 programme. The reach of the awarded activity spanned the whole country, reflecting on our shared history, but with an eye to our shared future. Award priorities were based on artistic excellence, the quality of collaborative and participatory arts practice and public engagement.

Artists and communities worked together to respond with new perspectives on the themes of the Decade of Centenaries. The outcome of this award was the creation of an excellent and ambitious programme of public-facing work, which encouraged inclusivity, diversity, participation, provocation and discourse on identity of place, space and people.

Following a call for proposals, the awardees in this programme were:

Right Here Right Now!

Right Here Right Now! was a festival celebrating children’s rights with free music, art, theatre, dance and a raucous children’s rally! The rally saw the premiere of a brand new song by Elaine Mai, commissioned by The Ark in response to submissions from children across Ireland. Alongside the festival programme, The Ark ran workshops for schools and families so children could learn about their rights and express themselves through speeches, chants, flags and banners. With the support of ART:2023, 14 Dublin school groups took part in a series of workshops in visual art, speechwriting and with the Ombudsman for Children, while schools outside Dublin participated in visual art workshops online.

Right Here Right Now | The Ark, Dublin 

Cycles

Cycles was a place-based, multilingual, ecologically-aware, movement project that drew together four intercultural and diverse community groups of all ages and abilities to explore how language and movement/travel has changed over the last 100 years from 1923 to the present day and imagine how it might evolve over the next 100 years, from the present day to 2123. 

Cycles | Carlow Arts Festival

Hereditas (Heirloom) 

Over the course of 100 years Travellers have played an important role in how the Irish state has emerged and evolved. The sustained difficulties experienced by Traveller communities through the removal of cultural and occupational practices, the criminalisation of nomadism and the inadequacy of policies around accommodation and education for example have and continue to frame the narratives of the community. In this period of commemoration it is important that the lived history and experience of Traveller communities is as much a part of that conversation.

Cairde Sligo Arts Festival was delighted to work with artist Seamus Nolan and Sligo Traveller Support group (STSG) on Hereditas - a project that set out to explore through community participation and collaborative practice how the Irish State has impacted on the culture and social history of Travelling people; to examine the diverse and unique material history and culture of Travellers both through external representations of traveller culture and from within the communities themselves.  

This thought-provoking intercultural project aimed to creatively challenge ideas on place-based identity development and belonging. Through a collaboration with Traveller communities and Traveller artists, facilitated by Sligo Traveller Support Group, Hereditas devised a dynamic and visual program of events and installations which were presented during Cairde Sligo Arts Festival.  

Hereditas aimed to explore how cultures in the present are holders of the memory and meanings of the past, and most importantly as the ground upon which we might proceed into the future. 

Hereditas | Cairde Sligo Arts Festival 

Possession

Possession  was a new opera bringing the artist Amanda Coogan and composer Linda Buckley together with the community artists of the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf. Based on a script from the deaf artist Teresa Deevy, Possession is based on the story of An Taín told through the eyes of Queen Medb. Irish Sign Language and unique abilities of the performers of the DTD were at the forefront of this production. It was a feast for the eyes - working from Coogan’s visual art practice, Buckley’s music of mythic magic and the physical dexterity and passion of the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf.  

Project Arts Centre | Possession 

My Place to Be

My Place to Be created an inclusive, durational, interactive, early years music and movement spectacle/installation for carers, parents and their young children with additional needs in Limerick, Cork and Galway.  

With a particular focus on space, place and identity, a team of experienced professionals in the field of arts and early years worked in collaboration with young adult artists with disabilities to achieve this. The contribution from young adult artists was more than an artistic collaboration, it represented future participation in society, a creative society, for the young children engaging at the event, demonstrating and modelling to families that there exists a community of place and purpose in the arts and creative sector for people with disabilities to thrive.  

My Place to Be - Helium Arts