Month: October 2015

Bumper crop of arts jobs & other news

Some of our MA in Arts Management & Cultural Policy students from UCD attending the Irish Museums Association event in Belfast

Some of our MA in Arts Management & Cultural Policy students from UCD, attending the Irish Museums Association event in Belfast

Just finished another update to the jobs page – whoa mama, there’s a lot on offer at the moment! Happy hunting…

A few other bits and pieces from this week:

Thanks to everyone who came along to the Irish Museums Association event in Belfast at the weekend, and especially to our wonderful speakers sharing their experience of creative collaborations with museums (slides will be posted soon!) Our next big event is the annual lecture on 11 November at the NGI, where we will welcome Sir Christopher Frayling, former Chair of the Arts Council England and the Design Council (UK), former trustee of the V&A, governor of the British Film Institute — you won’t want to miss it! Tickets are free but *must* be booked in advance (and our lectures usually book out!)

The Arts Council of Ireland recently announced its 10-year strategy Making Great Art Work – Leading the development of the arts in Ireland — and are inviting responses to the strategy, as well as hosting a series of fora nationwide from late October – November (registration required).

Arts Audiences’ Focus on Audiences – Digital Day 2015 event will take place on 17 December at Dublin Castle — an essential event if you’ve an interest in development, marketing, etc!

I’m intrigued by the Light Moves festival in Limerick (18-22nd November) that explores screendance and dance on film… such an unusual and engaging programme.

Limerick seems to be quite the busy place next month: on 19 November the Hunt Museum will host a symposium on Digital History, focusing on interactivity in heritage sites and museums.

The Abbey Theatre launched details of its 2016 programme yesterday, Waking the Nation – it looks to be a strong programme, although protests on twitter about about the lack of female playwrights seem justified… something to discuss perhaps in the new Peacock cafe just opened there too…

On 5 November we’re very pleased here at UCD to host a performance by Artist-in-Residence Dominic Thorpe, entitled Disjunction, based on work he’s been doing over the past year as part of UCD’s highly successful artist-in-res programme.

I’m delighted to be involved in the lecture series accompanying the National Gallery of Ireland’s upcoming exhibition The Pathos of Distance, a collaboration with the artist Sarah Pierce, exploring images of Irish immigration and diaspora. Lots of great info and images are now appearing on the NGI’s blog to accompany the exhibition which opens in December…

Finally — if you’re interested in arts fundraising and development — hope you’re following Jeremy Hatch (The Artful Fundraiser) — I just love his candid, funny (and highly knowledgeable!) blog posts on the ins and outs of arts development…

Arts news round-up: 19 October 2015

Screen Shot 2015-10-19 at 12.22.53

A few bits and pieces for your Monday…

Last call! We’ve more than 70 signed up for ‘The Creative Museum: Extending Participation Through Collaboration’ this Friday/Saturday at Queen’s University Belfast; a few extra tickets have been released through the link above, and there are some additional seats on the (free!) Dublin-Belfast bus taking folks up & returning on Saturday. It’s going to be a great day — many thanks to the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for their sponsorship of this event.

Always love seeing arts organisations venturing into new territory, and the Royal Hibernian Academy’s been leading the way on this one: their Blue Moon Lost Wednesdays events have been fab mixes of music, food and art — and their inaugural Interlude festival this weekend looks promising, with a live music room, club space, cabaret cinema, cocktail club, craft beer bar, vinyl room and pop-up restaurant!

Congratulations to my colleagues Victoria Durrer (QUB) and Kerry McCall (IADT) on the imminent launch of the Cultural Policy Research Observatory Ireland, a new network and resource for Irish academics (north and south) engaged in cultural policy research, across disciplines. Seed funded by the Irish Research Council, its inaugural event (by invitation) is taking place this Thursday, 22 October at QUB on the subject of The Production of Our Contemporary Livelihood. More great things are to come!

The details of Budget 2016 were announced last week; however the rather cheerful press release from the Department was quickly countered with more negative assessments from the National Campaign for the Arts and Theatre Forum. Both correctly highlight that most of the significant new funding allocations are devoted only to impending commemorations: core funding is only being increased by €4.5 million, a very disappointing sum given the substantial cuts to the arts & culture budgets since 2008. The Department has further indicated a ‘boost in funding for the National Cultural Institutions and the Arts Council’, but few details of what this constitutes are yet available (excepting a €2.5 million increase for the AC, but the wording suggests this may be a one-off). There’s no two ways about it: funding for the centenary is eclipsing investment into core arts and cultural funding. This is very problematic, especially for any and all activity falling outside that narrow categorization. I’m feeling a 2016 hangover coming on already…

Applications for the 2016 Government of Ireland postdoctoral scholarships are now being accepted. This is the primary means by which arts & humanities postdoc work is funded at Irish universities; if you’ve a PhD and would like to come speak with us about postdoc opportunities, feel free to get in touch!

Along with colleagues at Maynooth University and the International Network of Irish Famine Studies, I’m co-organising a conference on The Great Famine and its Impacts: Visual and Material Culture (14-16 March). Our call for papers has just been announced; we’ll be producing an edited volume, and have planned several special events in conjunction with the conference, so do consider sending in an abstract if you work in this field…

On 29 October I’ll be participating in the symposium Talking About Perpetrators, a cross-disciplinary event taking place in Dublin Castle and co-organised by College of Arts & Humanities Artist-in-Residence Dominic Thorpe, and Dr Emilie Pine from UCD School of English, Drama & Film. Tickets are very limited, so do book asap if you wish to attend!

Happy birthday, dear blog!

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Today marks the 8th birthday of www.artsmanagement.ie! Whoever would have thought I could keep the lights on for so long… 🙂

Thank you to everyone who has remained a reader — through the peaks and valleys of my own posting frequency! — and for the many, many kind emails over the years. I’m so pleased the blog has helped people find work, switch careers, conduct research, and stay updated with arts management and cultural policy news.

A few interesting tidbits, for the factoid fans:

  • The Jobs section is the most popular page (unsurprisingly). And this is the most popular post of all time. I don’t really know why!
  • The blog has grown from zero to more than 3,000 followers/subscribers. Most months it receives between 6-8,000 visitors, with just under 800,000 views since it began. Here’s a snapshot of where the top blog visitors have come from in 2015 so far (lone reader in Mozambique, I salute you):

artsmanagement.ie viewers

  • Yes, there really is just one person behind this (me!), and I don’t accept ads, payment or sponsorship of any kind (nor do I intend to — although I’m contacted often about this — because I think independence is important). I try to squeeze it in between teaching classes, giving lectures, doing research, writing articles, attending conferences, and keeping up with my 3 and 5 year old little boys — and unfortunately sometimes it slips a little down the list of priorities at busy times. I’ve seriously considered chucking it in quite a few times, but the volume of blog-related email I receive keeps me convinced it’s still of value. I certainly hope so, anyway!
  • I always welcome thoughts & responses to how the blog can be more useful — so please don’t hesitate to get in touch, and I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks, y’all.

Jobs-o-rama & other arts news

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Drawsoc - UCD's Visual Arts Society - during Fresher's Week

Drawsoc – UCD’s Visual Arts Society – during Fresher’s Week

The autumn is speeding by like a freight train – hard to believe we’re already in Week 5, here in bella Belfield. A few bits and pieces on this sunny Wednesday:

  • Jobs have been recently refreshed, in case you’re looking!
  • Very proud of the lovely folks over at UCD Drawsoc (our visual art student society) who signed up 400+ new members during Fresher’s Week, and also made this fab video showcasing their activities and those of the other student societies here at UCD. They are doing great work to promote arts practice & creative expression here on campus, and to be a welcoming community for all new students! They are amazing.
  • UCD Art History is turning 50! To mark the founding of our programme (the first degree in art history on the island), we’re having a day of celebrations and a reunion, on the 28th of November, culminating with a keynote by Dr Brian Kennedy, director of the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio). Registrations are now being taken for what’s going to be an epic day!
  • The deadline for responses to the proposed National Cultural Policy 2025 has been extended to 31 October; there is also a series of regional consultations by the Department of Arts, Heritage & the Galetacht ongoing throughout October around the country – check the schedule if you’re interested in attending.
  • Places are filling fast for the event ‘The Creative Museum: Extending Participation Through Collaboration’ — a wonderful two days in Belfast, highly subsidised for students, that will explore how creative arts practice is being integrated by museums. A wonderful chance also to sample the delights of the Belfast Festival and Belfast Open Studios! I’ll be bringing a group of around 20 from UCD — come join us and all the others from both north & south who will be attending.
  • Along with a great list of speakers, I’ll be participating in the conference Designing Commemoration: Performance, Participation and Process, this Thursday/Friday, organised by Dr Kathryn Milligan and Dr Niamh NicGhabann.
  • My colleague Dr Emilie Pine who coordinates the Memory Studies Network here at UCD has launched a new website – a great portal for anyone interested in research on this subject (including lots of podcasts, including one from me!)
  • Many of us who work in the visual arts bid farewell yesterday to Jason Oakley, the Publications Manager for many years at Visual Artists Ireland (and tireless arts champion and enthusiast), who died a few days ago. He was my editor for a number of years, and a friend — and I hope he would have been chuffed by all the love expressed for him over the last week, and how much he will be missed.