Last digest before Xmas, folks! And it’s a doozy…

• Jim Carroll in the IT wants to know your cultural highlights of 2010. No doubt the Rubberbandits will make multiple appearances (2 million+ views on YouTube? no. 1 on iTunes? Giant response from Liveline appearance? Willie O’Dea & Limerick never had it so good.)
• The Science Gallery is cited in today’s Times Higher Education as ‘a refreshingly upbeat public venue, with a strong focus on collaborative art-science projects that encourage audience participation (it also has the best cafe of any science centre in the world)’. Nice one, MJG et al.
• Druid & NUI Galway have announced a new partnership training future theatre professionals.
• Check out the website for the Monet exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, winner of best interactive site at the Eurobest Awards. In a word: wowsa (nice use of Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ for the soundtrack, by the way!)
• More censorship woes back stateside, where MOCA in LA has painted over a commissioned mural deemed offensive.
• Coming to another wall near you– the Dublin Docklands launched its ‘Art Park’ project, to be coordinated by the Sebastian Guinness Gallery, featuring large-scale nightly projections/screenings on the wall of the new Dublin Convention Centre. Proposals for projections, exhibitions, and other arts/cultural events in the new park are being solicited.
• Ok, so it’s a week old by now, but in case you missed it Gerry Smyth in the IT provided an excellent overview of how the budget cuts will affect the arts, and some musings on why cuts weren’t as savage as they might have been.
• In other funding news… the draft budget for Northern Ireland was announced on Wednesday, with a 9.3% cut forecasted for DCAL. No details yet, and more will emerge following public consultations through February.
• ‘Tis the season of university commencement… I’ve read this piece a few times and still find it clear-eyed and moving–  Theo Dorgan challenges current new university graduates to imagine a new Ireland, in spite of the havoc that’s been wreaked on their futures.

Season’s Greetings to all my readers!! Thanks for granting me the gift of your eyeballs over the past year.