Category: Event announcements

Warwick Commisssion visiting Queen’s University Belfast, 19 May 2015

Folks in the North (and others!) may be interested to attend a special presentation next week in Belfast, featuring members of the Warwick Commission who will discuss findings from their recent, extensive report on the subject of cultural value in the UK:

Visit of the Warwick Commission on the Future of Cultural Value
Tuesday 19 May at 3pm
0G/074 Lanyon Building, Queen’s University Belfast

  • How is culture valued and undervalued?
  • How important is creative education to the development of talent and participation in culture?

The Cultural and Creative Industries are the fastest growing industry in the UK. The Gross Value Added of the sector was estimated as £76.9 billion in 2013, representing 5% of the UK economy. Yet the articulation of the value of our culture and creativity is in danger of being reduced to a very restrictive definition of “cultural value”.

Taking this challenge as a point of inspiration, in November 2013 the University of Warwick launched a one-year Commission to undertake a comprehensive and holistic investigation into the future of cultural value. A diverse group of cultural leaders were invited to gather together the evidence and arguments to create a blueprint for the future of investment and engagement in our cultural lives. The Commission’s report Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth brings together the findings of a series of public and private meetings with artists, creative and cultural professionals, economists, business leaders and other stakeholders, backed up by targeted research.

The Commission makes a range of recommendations as to how we can ensure everyone has access to a rich cultural education and the opportunity to live a creative life. Warwick’s ambition is that the Commission will offer an authoritative and constructive contribution to public debates and government policy in relation to arts and culture in the UK.

Two of the researchers supporting the Commission, Dr. Eleonora Belfiore and Dr. Catriona Firth join us to present their findings and to discuss the implications for policy makers, arts managers and artists in the cultural sector.

Places at this event are strictly limited. Please RSVP by 5pm Friday 15 May to joy.eakin@qub.ac.uk

Further information:
The Warwick Commission: www.warwick.ac.uk/culturalvalue
Link to download the full report: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/research/warwickcommission/futureculture/finalreport/warwick_commission_final_report.pdf

City Life: new NCAD + UCD summer school this July

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Delighted to share details about a new accredited international summer school we’re launching as part of the NCAD + UCD project:

City Life: A Shared Summer School

Celebrated for its rich cultural heritage and history, Dublin is at a crucial point of transition. Currently re-negotiating its approach to urbanity, the city is an exemplar of many of the most critical challenges facing the contemporary global metropolis.

In July 2015 (13th – 31st), UCD and NCAD will join forces to offer a unique summer school programme giving students the opportunity to pursue their disciplinary and scholarly interests through a creative and critical engagement with the ongoing transformation of Dublin today.

Over a three-week period, students will explore and respond to Dublin’s rich urban culture. Along with numerous tours, visits and special events, the programme will combine shared studio activity with focused workshops, seminars and lectures.

Students will be given unique access to leaders in the cultural and creative sector, meeting and working with significant practitioners, artists, museum directors, and critical thinkers. High-profile visiting speakers will also contribute to the programme.

Along with Dr Declan Long from NCAD, I’ll be coordinating one of the programme tracks:

Culture, Memory and the City:

This strand is intended for participants keen to interrogate the relationship between memory and the city, through psycho-geographic and critical writing practices. Daily sessions will explore the imprint and trace of modern Irish historical experience on Dublin’s urban spaces and institutions. Together we will track (and experience) how film, photography, commemoration, ritual, artistic practice and and urban placemaking have intersected with political, social, economic conditions over the past century.

Students will be encouraged to formulate a creative and critical response to daily topics in the form of a photo essay/blog, piece of critical writing and group presentation. Sample sessions include:

  • Institutions, Archives and Memory (National Gallery of Ireland / National Archives)

  • Making and Working: Producing Culture in the City (Temple Bar Gallery & Studios / Francis Bacon Studio, Dublin City Gallery – The Hugh Lane / Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar)

  • Public Monuments and Urban Memories (walking tour of Dublin city public monuments)

  • Film, the City, and Memory: Dublin Onscreen (film viewing in association with the Irish Film Institute, Temple Bar)

Applications are open until 1 May, and details of the programme & costs are available here: http://ncad-ucd.ie/summer-school/. Happy to answer any questions as well about the programme, just drop me an email!

IMA Conference: Museums in Society: Navigating Public Policy (Belfast, 27 Feb – 1 March)

This year’s Irish Museums Association Annual Conference will be of particular interest to folks keen on exploring cultural policy, with its theme Museums in Society: Navigating Public Policy. It’s in Belfast from 27 Feburary – 1 March at the Ulster Museum. Concessions for students etc. are very generous, and it’s always a highlight of the year for me! The full programme, speakers’ biographies, abstracts, fees schedule and booking form are available on www.irishmuseums.org/annual-conference.

IMA_brochure

1 week to go! Arts management & policy conference, 25 June (UCD)

UCD Student Centre
FItzGerald Debating Chamber – Conference Location
Pool & Dance Studio
Black Box theatre
Cinema

We’re getting very excited about hosting next week’s conference ‘Mapping an Altered Landscape: cultural policy and management in Ireland‘ next Wednesday (25 June 2014) in UCD’s beautiful new student centre. Co-sponsored by IADT, the conference is supported by the Arts Council and Heritage Council. The one-day conference features a great line-up of speakers reflecting in an open format on current cultural policies and management practices.

Our main aim of the day is to propose solutions to a problem that perplexes us all: what might a coherent cultural policy look like?

The last cultural policy conference held at UCD was held in 2008 — right before the economic crash — and there’s no better time than the present to take a hard look at what’s changed in the interim, and talk openly about the way forward.

Our capacity is limited, with 100+ confirmed attendees from across the artforms and cultural sector (artists, arts managers, curators, theatre-makers, museum/heritage folks, local authority officers, representatives from the Department, Arts and Heritage Councils, government ministers, students and academics), so please register soon if you’d like to join us on the day! Speaker presentations will be diverse and brief to allow for maximum audience participation.

There will also be the opportunity to tour UCD’s new cultural facilities — still unknown to lots of folks, and open for programming and collaborations — including our state-of-the art cinema, black box theatre, dance studio and radio station. An optional screening of the documentary ‘Skin in the Game‘ (on Irish artists & the recession) will be held that evening after the conclusion of the conference in the new cinema.

I hope very much that many of you will be able to join us!

‘Mapping’ 2014 Conference schedule

www.culturalpolicyconference2014.ie

 

Full schedule: UCD/IADT Cultural Management & Policy conference (25 June)

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Delighted to share final details of the programme for our upcoming arts management & policy conference, ‘Mapping an Altered Landscape’ on 25 June here at UCD, in collaboration with IADT. We’ve a great line-up of speakers (plenaries are listed below), and the conference offers the opportunity to see UCD’s new student centre and its wonderful arts facilities as well!

Download full conference programme as pdf

For full details and to register: www.culturalpolicyconference2014.ie

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Plenary Session 1: Mapping an altered landscape: accounting for changes in Irish cultural policies and practices through the years of recession

In the first of our 4 plenary sessions, panellists will identify key changes that have taken place in policies, structures and management practices across the cultural field since 2008. Which changes have been for the good; which for the bad; and what’s been working well?

RUAIRI QUINN TD, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND SKILLS
GERRY GODLEY, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, IMPROVISED MUSIC COMPANY
AIDAN PENDER, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT & SECRETARIAT, FÁILTE IRELAND
CLAIRE DUIGNAN, INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR AND BUSINESS ADVISOR

MODERATOR: MARY WILSON, RTÉ

 

Plenary Session 2: Structural issues: identifying challenges and difficulties Plenary 2 will examine the fitness for purpose of current cultural structures and their responsiveness to change: asking is the full range of cultural expression and production adequately captured by current policies and institutional structures?

SARAH GLENNIE, DIRECTOR, IRISH MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, DEPUTY CHAIR, COUNCIL OF NATIONAL CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
PETER HYNES, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, MAYO COUNTY COUNCIL
CHRISTINE SISK, ACTING DIRECTOR, CULTURE IRELAND, DEPT OF ARTS HERITAGE AND THE GAELTACHT
ALAN COUNIHAN, ARTIST
MICHELLE CAREW, DIRECTOR AT NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR YOUTH DRAMA

MODERATOR: DR. EMILY MARK-­‐FITZGERALD, UCD

 

Plenary Session 3: Process issues: identifying and embracing change

The goal of this conversation is to identify the ways in which culture is produced and consumed under the processes of rapid economic and technological change. New forms of cultural practice and mediation have emerged that have implications for the way public policies and institutions understand and engage with change.

TREVOR WHITE, DIRECTOR, THE LITTLE MUSEUM OF DUBLIN
MARY CARTY, ENTREPRENEUR, ARTS CONSULTANT, AUTHOR
GAVIN DUNNE, MUSIC PRODUCER AND SONGWRITER, THE MAN BEHIND MIRACLE OF SOUND
GRACE DYAS, FOUNDER OF THEATRECLUB, AN ACTIVIST, THEATRE DIRECTOR, WRITER, PRODUCER
MONIKA SAPIELAK, DIRECTOR AT CENTRE FOR CREATIVE PRACTICES; DIRECTOR OF ARTPOLONIA, LAB FOR INTERCULTURAL COOPERATION &EXCHANGE

MODERATOR: ANDREW HETHERINGTON, BUSINESS TO ARTS

 

 Plenary Session 4: What should be done? Reflecting on the issues prompted by the preceding plenaries, session 4 panel members will endeavour to lead a way forward by identifying what needs to change in policy, practice, structures and thinking

MARY MCCARTHY, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SCULPTURE FACTORY
SHEILA PRATSCHKE, CHAIR, ARTS COUNCIL
CONOR NEWMAN, CHAIR, HERITAGE COUNCIL
WILLIE WHITE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE, DUBLIN THEATRE FESTIVAL

MODERATOR: SEAN ROCKS, RTÉ