Congratulations to Raymond Keaveney on his retirement: 23 years' service to the National Gallery of Ireland!

A busy week on the arts scene with lots of news & goings-on:

My colleague Dr Maeve Houlihan (UCD School of Business & a long term lecturer in our MA Arts Management) is co-convening a session at the upcoming World Congress of the International Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management — being held this June at University of Limerick! Her session is entitled ‘Services, Events and Arts Management‘ and paper abstracts will be accepted until 31 January.

Lots of news on the Director front… long-serving Director of the National Gallery Raymond Keaveney retired on 11 January, and Sarah Glennie was announced as the new Director of IMMA.

NUIG has announced its new 4-year BA in Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, in collaboration with Druid, Galway Arts Festival and Taibhdhearc na Gaillimhe.

Ni hao, Dublin Chinese New Year Festival! This is a month traditionally light on festival-type activities, so the New Year Festival’s launch today will provide some cheer in January’s gloom. May be time to break out my rusty Mandarin…

Three new positions coordinating Music Generation projects in Laois, Cork and Wicklow have been announced (the first two have been posted in the Jobs section of this site; the third has yet to be advertised).

The ever-interesting THEATREclub at Project Arts Centre is hosting a new series of discussions and workshops to accompany its latest production ‘The Family’, reflecting on contemporary Irish family life & related social issues.

The Limerick City Gallery of Art launched its snazzy newly refurbished building this week — by all accounts it’s a fabulous space.

DCAL has announced details of a £5,000 Culture Tech grant open to organisations and individuals based in Derry, aimed at projects combining cultural endeavours and digital technology — deadline is 17 February.

The Lighthouse Cinema reopened to the public today under the new management of Element Pictures (yay!) and I’ve just been alerted to VOLTA, a new on-demand Irish indie film & video service… very tempting (and great name, by the way)!

According to a recent RTE press release, its spring schedule includes “‘Masterpiece: Ireland’s Most-Loved Painting’, a major new programme that will kick off a five-week RTÉ-wide campaign to find Ireland’s favourite painting.” Hmm….

The Irish Museums Association’s latest members’ field trip is on the 28th of January to the Little Museum of Dublin and the Freemasons’ Hall… bound to be a popular one! Book in by emailing Gina at office@irishmuseums.org.

The Irish Times Theatre Awards nominee list was announced on Saturday; here’s the full list and some reflections of the jury.

Unfortunately news came this week of the untimely death of the wonderful artist Paddy Jolley, who died unexpectedly in India. A fund has been set up to assist his family in the immediate aftermath; please contribute if you can.

South Dublin County Council's new public art site

The big news last week was of course the budget… the National Campaign for the Arts and Laurence Mackin of the IT have provided the details of cuts to the budget (and full details are available from the Department)… a few key points:

• Gross funding in 2012 for the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht will be €267 million (plus an extra €8.6 million in funding for the National Gallery.) Note that it’s not possible to assess, strictly speaking, how this compares with previous years, due to the shifts in department make-up.
• However, overall 49% of the department’s budget (€129.6 million) is being allocated in 2012 to Arts, Culture and Film programme areas. Arts current funding is down 6%: from €124 million to €117 million.
• The Arts Council is down 3.2%, from €65.16 to €63.1 million.
• Arts capital funding is the most severely hit — down 34% from €32 million to €21 million. Most of this (13.2 million) is allocated to the Irish Film Board, and constitutes their annual funding (despite the ‘capital’ label)- although their funding is down overall by 14.9%.
• Culture Ireland will be down 11%.
• How did the national institutions fare? National Archives (-5%); IMMA, CBL, NCH and the Crawford (-4%); NMI (-5%); NLI (-7%). However these figures don’t count huge drops in capital budgets, which will severely affect the national institutions’ plans for developing infrastructure and other crucial projects.

Although the overall funding picture appears to be better than expected, the national institutions will be hard hit, and there will be other financial implications from ancillary budget measures for arts organisations (the increase in VAT, for example, as well as the decrease in CE funding which many organisations rely upon).

In other news…the Arts Council has announced its 2012 project grant recipients — an interesting look at work which lies ahead!

The new director of the National Gallery was finally announced — and it’s Sean Rainbird, current Director of the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, who also worked for many years at the Tate. Word has it that current staff are delighted with the appointment — I think it will be a much-needed breath of fresh air into the gallery, and look forward to his tenure!

South Dublin County Council has unveiled a new public art website — searchable and snazzy — and very useful for students of public art projects.

Fintan O’Toole has blasted the Abbey’s latest production of The Government Inspector, and decried (again) what he perceives is the national theatre’s failure to actively engage with the current breakdown of Irish society.

The Music Generation programme is being expanded to Laois, Wicklow and Cork City — no doubt news of new opportunities will soon follow…

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival has announced its call for volunteers.

An interesting article in the Guardian (‘Should the arts be more selective about sponsors?‘) canvassed reactions to the withdrawal of two poets from the TS Eliot prize competition over their objections to the award’s sponsorship by a hedge fund.

I’m really digging all the posts at the Guardian’s Culture Professional Network blog… tons of interesting and useful posts there to anyone working in the field.

Not strictly arts-related, but if you are a researcher check out the new British Newspaper Archive project from the British Library (lovingly reviewed by the fantastic Bioscope blog) — it’s gonna rock your world.

And finally… congrats to our fantastic 2011 class of Arts Management & Cultural Policy MA graduates! It was wonderful to see them in the glad rags last week at commencement

Hope everyone is enjoying all of the holiday activities across town — such a busy time of year!

Still of video I loved at DC: Chen Chieh-jen, 'Empire’s Borders I', 2008-2009

Some of you may know I write a monthly column for the Visual Artists’ News Sheet, usually reflecting on some aspect of recent cultural policy and the visual arts in Ireland… the last issue of the VAN was a special issue anticipating the Dublin Contemporary (which I’ll also be reviewing for Museum Ireland, out this winter), and since it’s not available online I thought I’d include full text of my column here. This was written before the show opened, but on reflection (and following several lengthy visits), I think it’s more than met the expectations expressed here:

All Change (Emily Mark-FitzGerald, Visual Artists News Sheet, May/June 2011)

So the Dublin Contemporary is upon us at last… as Earlsfort Terrace is prepped to become Dublin’s P.S.1, it’s an exciting prospect for UCD’s old stomping ground to host an intriguing and provocative major exhibition. Designated as the ‘critical mass’ site for the DC, much has been made by curators Christian Viveros-Fauné and Jota Castro of the palimpsestic nature of the Terrace, its institutional history dovetailing with the central theme/project ‘The Office of Non-Compliance’. Rather than a gloomy-sounding destination for wayward students, the ‘Office’ is imagined as the engine room of the DC, providing spaces and structures for ideological and practical discussions sparked by the exhibition (one does hope there will be tea.)

For someone enmeshed in the contemporary life of UCD and its arts faculty, the situating of contemporary art amongst the ruins of academia is a thrilling and challenging proposition. A common complaint amongst many faculty is the lack of engagement we often find with our students – compared to student generations ten or twenty years ago, they appear extraordinarily apolitical and outcome-focused. Often juggling heavy courseloads in addition to part-time work and all the distractions that accompany college life, students’ sense of their own transformative powers and ambitions for the future can seem muffled and diffuse.

I teach the largest first year introductory course to art history at the university (annually attracting around 175 students from varying disciplines), and it’s not unusual for students to remark that they’ve never been to the National Gallery, or to IMMA, or to the Hugh Lane on their own account. Most students (even those entering as art history majors) come to university with a weak visual education – unsurprising, given the state of Irish arts education at primary and secondary level – and yet they are highly attuned to the visuality of daily experience, the significance of the image, and the potency of visual communication. Connecting their deepening knowledge of the historical with a sense of art’s vibrancy and contemporary relevancy is a key aspiration of the course, but much more is at stake.

Carl Jung observed that ‘the artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purpose within him.’ The impulse of art, seen from this perspective, stems from a creative force tied to and yet apart from the self. Cultivating the conditions through which art can be articulated – allowing oneself to become a ‘medium’ for creation and artistic understanding – is the challenge posed to the individual. If this seems altogether too metaphysical to suit contemporary practice and sentiments, it remains useful as a reminder of how both expression and knowledge are linked to capacity. And the purpose of education – the  real urgency behind our desire for young people to engage, be frustrated, to confront ideas that confuse or take time to absorb – is to grow the human capacity for change and intelligence.

Similarly, the etymology of the term ‘edification’, in its medieval sense, harks back to building and construction; its association with ideas of moral or intellectual improvement is a more recent development. No wonder perhaps that we continue to situate ‘edifying’ processes within physical institutions themselves: the university, the museum, the church. The resonance of this metaphor is no doubt one which will be carried forth by the projects to be installed in Earlsfort Terrace – dismantling, examining and dissecting structures all part of the classic function of the biennial. Ireland in particular has experienced such profound questioning of its foundational structures in recent decades, as the crumbling of Church power and the illusion of our economic miracle attest, that the juxtaposition of interrogative work within the familiar space of the decayed university is an important and potent step very much of this moment.

Despite the weighty expectations and troubled genesis borne by the DC, my own wish for the project is simple: to remember that the true audience for this work, the ones who will be most profoundly inspired and exasperated by its content and who will speak of it and think of it beyond the next publishing cycle, are not international art tourists but the people of Dublin and Ireland. This isn’t a plea to be confused with a critique of content or a misguided appeal for ‘accessibility’; I hope it will be difficult and antagonistic and more than a little messy, and the programme looks promising on all these counts. The international range of the artists selected (incorporating work beyond the usual Boston-Berlin axis to include representation from Latin America, Asia and the Middle East) bodes particuarly well, for provincialism has long been a lamentable and yet persistent force within Irish art history. Yet ultimately, for such an endeavour to have meaning beyond Failte Ireland’s annual report, it must acknowledge, respect, and to some degree anticipate the diversity of encounters its Irish publics seek – and provide us with the circumstance and stimulus for growth and debate. I look forward to an academic year where conversations with my students (of all ages and background) will be fuelled by praise and damnations of what they’ve seen at the DC. Whether or not we always like or understand or sympathise with our fellow artists and human beings, it’s healthy for all of us to spend a bit of time at the Office. I’ll put the kettle on.

Kilkenny Arts Festival launches today! Lots in the programme… we’re heading down tomorrow, looking forward to some visual arts, a bit of music and (since it’s Kilkenny, after all!) a bit of craft. My colleague Pat Cooke is also chairing a session tomorrow on the arts in recession.

Culture Night 2011 will be here before you know it (it’s Sept. 23rd, by the way)! The good folks over at Temple Bar are currently looking for volunteers to assist with the massive culture love-in… find out more about volunteering, and download the application form to send in ASAP!

I’ve just finished updating the jobs page and there’s a remarkable number of posts advertised (including 6 posts at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland) — it’s unusual to see so many jobs in August (usually the slowest month of the year), but promising for all the folks looking to make their next career move.

I mentioned it in last week’s update, but here’s another piece about the training programme in digital media offered by DIT and the Digital Skills Academy at the Digital Hub.

Interesting comments thread over on LinkedIn in response to a media ‘internship’ posting that’s rubbing folks the wrong way (picked up by Broadsheet.ie as well).

Go check our Arthub.ie, a new blog indexing site devoted to Irish blogs on arts and culture.

News that the renovation of Dublin’s Victorian fruit & vegetable market is going ahead & scheduled for a November completion is great news — it’s intended as a showcase for the wonderful small producers locally and from across the country… can we even begin to rival Cork’s English Market?!?

Congratulations to Jo Mangan of the Performance Corporation, who’s been selected as the Jerome Hynes Clore Fellow by the Arts Council!

I was very sorry to hear today of the passing of Eamonn O’Doherty, one of Ireland’s most accomplished sculptors, whose work I’ve written about quite extensively. His work includes the Anna Livia fountain, the James Connolly monument, and my favourite piece, the Westchester Irish Famine Memorial. A great sculptor and a lovely, growly man who will be much missed!!

I’ve recently taken over from Arts Audiences’ James Kelly as the admin for the LinkedIn Arts Ireland group — 560 current members! If you use LinkedIn and work professionally in the arts, join us over there for discussions & interesting postings re: arts & culture in Ireland.

Sharks are pretty awesome (not arts-related strictly speaking, but it is shark week after all).

Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival 2011

It’s been a while, but I missed ya. Here’s the latest round-up:

First Thursdays in Temple Bar (where cultural organizations stay open extra late) keeps getting bigger and bigger – check it out next week if you haven’t already!

While I was away the Arts Council appointed Orlaith McBride as its new director… still no white smoke on the new director of the National Gallery, however!

I was very sorry to hear of the passing of artist Bill Crozier — a lovely man and a wonderful artist, I interviewed him a few years ago for a book on Stoney Road Press and recently enjoyed seeing his work at the RHA Annual Exhibition. He was extremely warm, funny and generous and we had a wonderful time speaking about our shared love of jazz, among other things! His work will be a wonderful legacy of a great personality and aesthetician.

The Music Generation project is underway (with a coordinating post still open in Co Mayo) and a national seminar to alert folks to further funding opportunities and other aspects of the programme will take place in September and is now accepting registrations.

There’s so many folks looking for work out there at the moment (mucho trafico on the jobs & internships page at the minute) – and if you’ve an interest in upskilling in digital media, and have been unemployed for 6 months or more,  the WebElevate programme (in conjunction with DIT and the Digital Skills Academy) is offering 120 funded places on a series of courses to be run in the Digital Hub.

Lots happening in theatreland… Willie White was appointed as the new Artistic Director of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival to cheers all round! Congrats to Willie – there will be big shoes to fill at the Project!

Meanwhile both the Absolut Fringe Festival and the Theatre Festival have announced their programmes – with Irish Theatre Magazine providing a cheeky breakdown of Theatre Fest stats for your amusement J

The Everyman Theatre in Cork has also made a major appointment in its new Director Michael Barker-Caven, relocating to the People’s Republic from the UK.

I was delighted to see Thisispopbaby’s production Alice in Funderland is part of the Abbey’s schedule for 2012 – I missed its original staging and heard rave reviews, so it’s great to see there’ll be a second chance!

One great session at the recent Theatre Forum conference was led by John Deely on career management in the arts; he recently forwarded a useful e-workbook on to participants that might be of interest to many readers – it can be downloaded here.

The Guardian recently featured a polemic blog post on lack of women working in UK theatre – many of the comments are actually better (and more focused) than the original posting, but it makes for a really interesting read.

Festival season is in full swing and this weekend (and my family!) will see the Spraoi in Waterford, the international Street Fair festival. Lots happening over the bank holiday, but The Reich Effect weekend programme (celebrating the work of composer Steve Reich) at the Cork Opera House looks like another great bet if you’re down south.

Open House Dublin 2011 is looking for volunteers! It takes place from 7-9 October and is a fantastic event – have a look at their flier if you have time & energy to spare!

Over my holidays I read with some bemusement further articles on the ambition to turn Bank of Ireland’s College Green premises into a literary/cultural centre (a move strongly rebuffed by the bank) – an Irish Times editorial from a few weeks back offers the sage advice to consider the failure to establish a national opera company and the stagnation of plans to move/expand the Abbey and the National Concert Hall before plowing ahead with another ill-advised capital project.

However I was extremely pleased to hear the Irish Georgian Society has acquired the former Dublin Civic Museum for its new premises and plans to embark on a restoration of the building; we’ve a close relationship in the School with the GS and wish them the best with their snazzy new digs! It’s wonderful to have new life breathed into such an important city space.

The Irish Writers’ Centre is launching a new initiative in its ‘Novel Fair’ event, which invites first-time authors to submit anonymous work to be considered by a judging panel of folks from the publishing industry, and have the opportunity to meet directly with publishers and agents. It sounds like an unmissable opportunity for new writers; the submission deadline is November 11^th.

Audiences Northern Ireland has re-launched its website – fancy!

Putting my board member hat on… the Irish Museums Association is seeking contributions (both articles and exhibition/book reviews) to this year’s journal Museum Ireland, the only publication in the country devoted to articles and discussion of museum-related matters. Send ‘em in!

I’m looking forward to seeing the latest exhibition at IMMA of photographs from the David Kronn collection – he’s promised his collection to IMMA, and it looks like a great chance to get a peek at a marvelous private collection.

Dublin-based Irish visual artist Al Freney has had one of his works selected for the prestigious BP Portrait Awards, hosted annually by the National Portrait Gallery in London – congrats! Here’s a press release if you’re interested to know more…

I’m late this week (or early, depending on your perspective), but exam marking is finished for the year – woo hoo! Lots on the wire over the past few days (and not all Eurovision or Queen-related):

Most intriguing was the news at the weekend that the state is keen to take back Bank of Ireland’s College Green buildings ‘for cultural uses’ on foot of its bailout arrangements with the bank. Apparently the Minister wishes to turn the historic building into a ‘tourist attraction’ of some kind: ‘His plans, which are at a preliminary stage, envisage the conversion of the building into a centre celebrating Dublin’s literary heritage, incorporating an exhibition space and reading rooms as well as a cafe and meeting rooms. Mr Deenihan’s spokeswoman said he was examining a number of venues for a “world literature centre”, but that no decision had been taken yet on a location.’ An interesting proposal — but can or will the government actually stump up for such a large potential development? Such ‘grand gestures’ of the capital kind have been a feature of every government, but it’s the ongoing investment in the arts (and provision of programming, administrative overhead, etc) that’s proven more difficult to source over the years. It will take some delicate negotiation to ensure such a project doesn’t wind up another white elephant, another unsustainable or irrelevant ‘arts centre’, or a further drain on already meagre resources. And frankly, publishing a range of fairly daft public suggestions  in the Irish Times (eh, they’re not knocking it down, folks) — and the short-term memories which appear to have forgotten there WAS an arts centre there until recently! — isn’t quite the discussion this project needs. The prospect exercises me greatly because in my view, this is the most magnificent civic complex in Dublin city centre, and we haven’t a great history of being sympathetic to our architectural heritage.

In further NAMA-related developments, the National Gallery is receiving the gift of a Lavery painting ‘Return from Market’ (cheeky choice!) as a thank-you from the agency for storing works to be resold from Derek Quinlan’s collection. The rest of the collection is supposedly being offered first to the NGI/IMMA/OPW (although their acquisition budgets are tiny, so I’m not sure how this will pan out!) before going to public auction. Note to NAMA: I have a very secure, dry attic, and a Roderic O’Conor would do nicely for our living room wall.

Dublin Dance Festival began on Friday, and continues until May 28th. I’m quite taken with the description of Hiroaki Umeda’s Haptic & Adapting for Distortion (and the graphics remind me of a Peter Kogler exhibition I saw at MUMOK some years ago – most groovous).

Today the National Campaign for the Arts coordinated a series of 40+ ‘meet & greets’ between arts folks and local TDs — Tania Banotti (head of Theatre Forum) was likewise recently profiled in the Irish Times on her involvement with the campaign. It’s great to see ongoing enthusiasm for the campaign — and significant fundraising achieved for their efforts.

Temple Bar Gallery & Studios recently launched its new website — very snazzy — and I’m looking forward to attending their symposium on Visual Arts Audiences on Wednesday.

The Irish Architecture Foundation has launched Architecture Tours Ireland, offering five new ongoing public tours: ‘Dublin Docklands’,'Georgian Dublin’, ‘Temple Bar’, ‘The Living City’, ‘Children’s Activity Tour’. Hopefully they’ll find great success with this initiative; with so much fascinating architectural history condensed in the city centre, it seems a natural fit!

Good news that imprisoned Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei was finally allowed a family visit, although his situation still looks far from encouraging — the amount of public pressure and denouncement of his detention has been quite astonishing, and the Chinese government’s lack of response even more so.

The Contemporary Music Centre will be staging its last new music salon until the fall — the final performance on 25 May sounds intriguing:  ‘a music theatre piece based on the diaries and poetry of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Bill Manhire’.

I received a link today to a new blog focused on studio visits throughout Ireland — From the studio of… — sounds like a great idea, and a promising theme — I’ve got ya bookmarked!

Loughlin Deegan will be leaving the helm of the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival to take up the juicy post of Director of the Lir, the new national academy for the performing arts envisaged as the RADA of Ireland.

Gemma Tipton in today’s Irish Times wrote on grassroots/artist-led initiatives in a time of recession (a subject of one of last year’s MA theses, and another this year as well) — in related news the collectively-run space The Complex avoided eviction in the ill-starred Smithfield development this week thanks to the intervention of Minister Deenihan, as reported in Le Cool.

And finally… big congrats to Jessica Fuller, who’s currently upgrading her MA with us — she was the driving force behind the first project to be awarded funding under the National Music Education Programme — known as ‘Music Generation‘ (sponsored by U2 and the Ireland Funds and managed by Music Network), the most important scheme funding music education in the country. Three years of development are now ahead for the Sligo Music Education Programme (SMEP) in partnership with Music Generation — looking forward to great things ahead!

I’m off this weekend to visit Cork, avoid the Queen and check out new stuff at the Glucksman, Triskel and Lismore Castle Arts — may not be back with another update until next week, so behave yourselves in the meantime.

Photo from the Irish Times, 5 April 2011: Rob Dunne and Antoinette Emoe prepare Diego Rivera's Landscape with Cacti for hanging at Imma. Photograph: Alan Betson

A sooper-dooper bumper round-up for today, to make up for my absence over the past 2 weeks (travelling for conferences & wrapping up MA course for 2010-11!) I’ve made a few sub-headings to make navigating this update easier; I promise not to stay away so long next time!

Jobs / internships

Want to work for the Arts Council? Now’s your chance… currently hiring a new Director and 15 (!) new arts advisors across all disciplines, so dust off the CV….

I’ve been following news on changing practices around internships/work placements in the UK (see previous post): just yesterday the Guardian reported on Nick Clegg’s admission of the advantage conferred to him via a placement in his youth arranged by his father.  There’s been a recent push in government (as part of a ‘social mobility’ campaign) to increase application transparency, fair remuneration, and access to internships in desirable professions — an issue of importance here in Ireland as well, though this has yet to be addressed in any substantial way. Groups/blogs like Intern Aware and Interns Anonymous have formed in the UK to push for reform and improve access (although I would disagree with their distinctions drawn between ‘interning’ for a company and ‘volunteering’ with a charity as neglecting/mis-characterising the non-profit sector); is it time for similar action here in Ireland?

Awards Season

Congratulations to the Science Gallery for its recent Shorty Award (for the best Cultural Organisation) at the ‘Oscars of Twitter’, and to Vulgo.ie for its triumph as best Arts & Culture blog at the Irish Blog Awards in late March!

Budget woes & money matters

The Lighthouse Cinema is embroiled in a rent dispute with its landlord, who recently doubled the rent from 100k to 200k. The future of the cinema is of great concern to its patrons, local residents in Smithfield and taxpayers (especially since the government invested €1.75 million in its development). The petition by the landlord to wind up the lease has been adjourned to allow for board discussions; it’s also been suggested that the Cultural Cinema Consortium (formed by the Arts Council and the Irish Film Board) who initially invested in the project might take it over as a going concern… Certainly I’d be of the view it’s the best arthouse cinema in Dublin (sorry IFI!), although the decline of the Smithfield development and its failure to secure lasting tenants is obvious to anyone visiting, and a clear obstacle the cinema’s struggled to deal with. Will keep you posted…

As the Arts Council England finally sent out funding notifications to organisations,  the scale of cuts was wide enough to warrant massive coverage in all the UK dailies (I follow the Guardian mainly) and even feature on a Newsnight segment. 206 organisations had their funding cut completely, and supporters of various organisations and artforms fumed. The Arts Council itself recently came in for strongly worded criticism and an order to sell off big chunks of its collection, whilst the CEO of ACE answered tough online questions about funding decisions. It’s almost too much to digest, especially at a distance, but my impression is that ACE was in an impossible situation, with nearly every commentator convinced of his/her view that decision X or decision Y was a travesty of judgment — I would have more sympathy with Charlotte Higgins’ view that

… ACE’s behaviour is only a sideshow. The real story here is the gradually corrosive effect of a government that, while paying lip-service to the importance of the arts, seems intent on sleepwalking the nation towards cultural impoverishment. The cuts to ACE cannot be seen in isolation from the removal of public funding for humanities tuition in higher education; the absence of arts subjects from the English baccalaureate; the unstable situation among local authorities, some of which are bravely protecting cultural provision while all too many are cutting it off; the starvation of libraries.

Northern Ireland news

An Arts Hustings for Northern Ireland will be hosted by Arts Audiences NI, Arts & Business, and Voluntary Arts on 19 April at the Grand Opera House in Belfast; representatives from the various political parties will be in attendance, and Declan McGonagle will also be speaking.

Have to give a shout-out to all the fab folks who hosted our MA class recently during our visit to Belfast… thanks to Stephen Douds from BBC NI / Lyric Theatre, Ciara Hickey at the Ormeau Baths Gallery, Kabosh Theatre Company & Paula McKetridge, and Trevor Parkhill at the Ulster Museum for their fabulous hospitality — we had a marvellous time!

New research resources

I was recently alerted to the DHO:Discovery portal, one of the outcomes of the Digital Humanities Observatory project. It provides online access to digitised images, text, and sound recordings from a range of Irish cultural institutions, including the Chester Beatty Library, Irish Traditional Music Archive, and lots of material from TCD’s archives. The interface is clunky, but it’s wonderful to be able to access all of this material so easily, and will prove very useful for researchers.

I heart Ciaran Benson and his lovely writing, and I don’t care who knows it. The Irish Review of Books recently published his review of recent texts on Brian O’Doherty/Patrick Ireland — would that more Irish art criticism (including my own) flowed so beautifully!

The much-anticipated book Ireland, Design and Visual Culture : Negotiating Modernity 1922-1992, edited by Linda King and Elaine Sisson, has just been published. With The Moderns catalogue from IMMA also finally available, I’m looking forward to an imminent immersion in new Irish visual culture research 

If new Irish art historical research is your bag (as it’s certainly mine), check out the annual Irish Association of Art Historians’ Study Day, taking place this Saturday (9 April) at IMMA from 10-5. It will be showcasing new research (spanning all periods/geographies of art history) by folks working on this island, and we’re delighted to have three PhD students from our own School presenting as well: Louis Funder, Jessica Fahy and Silvia Guglielmini (download the full programme).

Launches / event announcements / calls for participation

After lots of hard work and enthusiasm Business to Arts formally launched Fundit.ie, a new crowdsourcing platform for funding Irish arts and cultural initiatives. Crowdfunding as a phemomenon recently received a nice write-up in the Irish Times, and already there’s a great clutch of projects seeking funding on Fundit.ie: so far I’ve helped fund Monster Truck’s new digital screen in Temple Bar, IMMA’s efforts to purchase new Bea McMahon drawings, the publication by Conor & David for Open House Dublin, and an Irish/Polish Film Project. One of the caveats of crowdfunding is that organisations don’t receive funds unless their target is reached — so get over there, register, and contribute what you can to what catches your fancy!!

I am gutted I missed last night’s opening at IMMA for the Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera exhibition (complete with tequila and mariachis! In Dublin!! More exclamation marks necessary!!!!) Looking forward to seeing the show in any case (although as an Angelena I’ve seen my fair share of Kahlo & Rivera — and Siquieros and Orozco, who make up the holy trinity of Mexican muralistas). Sure to be a massive crowd-pleaser… (p.s. Aidan Dunne’s reflections on 20 years of IMMA’s history last week made for a nice recap!)

The second meeting of the Visual Arts Workers Forum (WORK IT) is taking place in Project on April 20th — the discussions and planned presentations look great, and are aimed at folks across Ireland working in the visual arts.

Friday is Love : Live Music / National Music Day, coordinated by Music Network — get thee down to one of the many events happening nationwide (the hubs will be hitting the town with junior in tow, seeing how much music he can take til he pops!)

Cinemagic Dublin is currently seeking kids and teenagers 10-18 years in age to sit on its film review jury — if you have any budding film critics knocking about the house, here’s your chance!

The Heritage Council is hosting an  EU Funding Information Event for Heritage Organisations on 13 April at its offices in Kilkenny, which will provide information for individuals and organisations on how to access EU pots o’cash — an underutilised source of funding in Ireland!

Miscellany

Aosdána recently added John Arden, Joseph O’Connor, John Tuomey, Corban Walker and Daphne Wright to their midst… @RositaBoland ‘s twitter reporting of their annual general meeting on April 4th was particularly entertaining (gardening wha?)

The Irish Times debuted its first Culture Podcast yesterday, featuring Fintan O’Toole, Jim Carroll, Rosita Boland and Shane Hegarty.

Puh-lease: 6 hours a week? Explaining what Irish academics do (and justifying the weirdness of our working patterns / heaviness of workload) continues to be the bane of my existence, especially as we’re now meant to conform to the Crazy Croke Park Agreement that’s arbitrarily imposed a demand of an extra hour spent teaching every week, across all levels of education (although I pause in my rant to spare a thought for Queen’s University in Belfast, where colleagues are facing drastic budget measures that will have a terrible impact on working conditions and consequently student experience). Much of the interesting debate on this subject has taken place over on ex-DCU president Ferdinand von Prondzynski’s University Blog (who’s since moved over to Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen). The folks over at DublinIntellectual (particularly Dr Marisa Ronan) are taking matters into their own hands, making efforts to broaden awareness of research conducted by third level academics, by hosting a series of accessible ‘salons’ — the first takes place tonight at 8.30 at the Shebeen on South Great Georges Street.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something… but gotta get back to the day job!

• Anyone looking for a good intern? Some of our MA in Arts Management & Cultural Policy students are still seeking 8 week work placements this spring/summer in cultural organisations of all stripes (in Ireland/the UK/Europe/US). If you have a special project underway in need of assistance, and/or would like to welcome one of our students into your organisation, email me with details.
• In a similar vein, the Digital Hub has also issued a call for interested organisations and companies to participate in its ‘Best in Show’ competition, which judges student work & offers placements in Digital Design, Film/Video, Multimedia,Animation, and Audio/Music.
• Lots going on infrastructurally in the North: the new arts centre in Downpatrick, Co Down has broken ground, and the Lyric Theatre in Belfast’s major new theatre by architects O’Donnell & Tuomey is set to be finished in May; a slew of new jobs have also just been advertised for the venue. I heard a presentation a while back by the architects on the proposed design, and the final result looks to be fab.
• The Arts Council of Northern Ireland continues its campaign (‘A Fair Deal for the Arts‘) to protect the cultural sector from devastating cuts in the forthcoming budget; a recently published report on the effect of the economic downturn on its regularly funded organisation details the damage that’s already been done.
• The Department for Education in the UK has published a report on Music Education in England; one would hope its impact will be greater than the much-lauded but little-implemented Points of Alignment (2008) report in Ireland.
• Culture Ireland’s ‘Imagine Ireland‘ year-long programme of events in the US has received lots of press recently, but on Monday the Irish Times had an interesting profile of the lesser-known Solas Nua center in Washington D.C., dedicated to showcasing contemporary Irish art.
• The Contemporary Music Centre’s been busy: next Tuesday (the 15th) they’re hosting a day to introduce their ‘Artist in the Community‘ scheme to aspiring composers and musicians; and the 23rd of Feb and 30th of March sees their Nights of New Music programme at the National Concert Hall.
• An upcoming one-day workshop.seminar on academic blogging is coming up on 4 March at TCD: Honest to Blog: A symposium on web legitimacy is part of an ongoing series on the subject of blogging in the humanities.
• I’m loving LeCool Dublin’s coverage of arts events and their snazzy website; worth a look-see if you’re not familiar with it already.
• The National Campaign for the Arts has created a new Twibbon to add to Facebook/Twitter avatars & show your support during the general election campaign.
• Not arts related, strictly speaking, but one of the best articles I’ve read on the Irish economic crisis was recently published in March’s Vanity Fair.
• World Book Night is coming up! One million books will be given out during the first week of March in Ireland and the UK, and I’m thrilled to be one of the lucky folks chosen to give out 48 copies of Beloved by Toni Morrison! I’ll be posting details of my master giveaway plan next week if you’re interested in snagging a copy.
• And just to keep your day sweet… all hail John Mackintosh, the Toffee King. I can assure you in advance you will like it. It is delightful.

I need a lie down– far too much happening over the last week! Here’s the skinny:

• In a (relatively) surprising announcement, Fionnuala Croke (head curator at the National Gallery) was named new director of the Chester Beatty Library, replacing the outgoing legend Michael Ryan. Croke had been tipped as a potential replacement for Raymond Keaveney as Director of the NGI following his retirement this year, so her appointment to the CBL has led to much speculation about future leadership at the Gallery.
• The word on Fundit.ie, Business to Arts’ new crowdsourcing site (check out the video above!), was leaked to a wider audience this week, with a formal launch coming in February. If you aren’t familiar with crowdsourcing, have a look-see at established sites like www.kickstarter.com– this project has major potential for Ireland’s creatives.
• Music Generation, the new music education programme managed by Music Network and set to be rolled out nationwide, has received major sponsorship from U2 and the Ireland Fund which will allow it to be realised over the next three years (speaking of Music Network, they’re looking for an intern– deadline is Friday!)
• Yesterday’s Irish Times ran an article by Gemma Tipton detailing pressure artists face to make ends meet: sobering first hand accounts strike a sharp contrast with critiques of the income tax exemption in recent months.
• The Jameson International Film Festival has announced a screenwriting competition and issued a call for volunteers.
• Why have I not seen this blog before? Diane Ragsdale (pursuing a PhD in cultural economics in Amsterdam), has written a great series of pieces on cultural management & policy (attracting many excellent & insightful comments).
• The shortlist for the Irish Times Theatre Awards has been announced– according to the article, the Gate has refused its productions to be allowed for consideration (apparently last year was the same). I’ve yet to discern the logic behind this? In other theatre news, The Company is looking for a last-minute, eager assistant for its production ‘As You Now Are So Once We Were at The Abbey.
• ACE cuts are to be announced in 2 weeks’ time… meanwhile the Guardian has made the excellent move of centralising information about UK arts funding on its Culture Cuts blog.
• The VIP Art Fair is set to go live in 2 days — a groovy new model of an online-only art fair that’s attracted the participation of major international galleries, features high-tech means of viewing the work available and offers the ability to chat live with dealers in a suite of innovative features. Will have to check out and ogle the functionality, ummmm.
• I’ve shied away recently from posting event announcement (as I receive so many!), but I always have a soft spot for projects run by programme alumni: tomorrow is the launch of ‘Haiti Lives – One Year On‘, a photography exhibition run by TCD’s International Development Initiative, on view at Trinity until Wednesday Februrary 9th.

Phew.

• Opera Ireland went out on a high note (excuse the pun!) with its production of Tosca– also the first opening night of opera to be streamed live online in Ireland.
• Our own college council meeting has been postponed pending budget announcements; devastating budget cuts for UK colleges of the arts (and the Open University) makes for glum reading.
• Further on the subject of UK arts cuts– the Guardian’s helpfully collating articles that deal with the impact and extent of cuts to the arts– from the slash and burn of Somerset’s county council that eliminated 100% of arts funding, to the better news of Scotland’s relatively light cuts to its arts budget.
• The Department of Tourism, Sport and Culture announced the recipients of its cultural technology grants. Lots and lots of iPhone applications funded, with the largest grant (€180,000) to the Foynes Flying Boat Museum to develop a 3-D hologram ‘tracing the history and development of Irish coffee for flying boat passengers at Foynes’: seriously?!
• The Irish Museums Association is sponsoring a one-day seminar at University of Ulster (‘Practice Meets Theory‘) for students and professionals interested in museum studies. Attendance is free!
• Bucking the trend of the unpaid internship– the Jerwood Charitable Foundation in the UK is offering a series of creative bursaries in association with selected arts and cultural organisations – the selection of opportunities is quite juicy!