I’ve just given the blog a bit of a refresh: checking links, adding a new FAQ section, more info on our MA course at UCD, and additional resources under the Research tab (the libraries are busy this time of year!)

We’re coming to the end of interviewing for next year’s MA class, which is a useful reminder to me of how many folks look at & use this site, so I hope this offers some small improvements. Thanks everyone for all of your great comments & suggestions, online and off… keep ’em coming.

(pic above from Vantastival music festival last weekend, founded & run by MA programme alum Louise Tangney!)

** UPDATE: we raised over €3,000 for the NCFA!! Y’all rock, thanks so much for the support!

Only 10 days to go until the ultimate So You Think You Know Your Arts Table Quiz on 18 April, in aid of the National Campaign for the Arts! Do you know your Day-Lewis from your Druid? Heaney from your Henry? Show the other artforms who’s boss: team registrations are being taken on Project Arts Centre’s website (60 euro for a team of 4).

Prizes are fab, and I’m helping to set questions: hope to see many of you there!

My regular updates have been on pause since I returned from maternity leave — still catching my breath this semester! — but I’ve  too much good stuff to not share!

Project Arts Centre’s Gala Night (in support of its Project Catalysts programme) is tonight! If you can’t make it, their current show from Fishamble (Tiny Plays for Ireland 2) has been getting rave reviews – can’t wait to see it.

The Council of National Cultural Institutions is holding an important one-day conference (Lighting a Fire) on 19 April to address the recent Arts in Education Charter published by the Dept. of Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht. This is sure to be at capacity, so book asap!

Mark your calendars, form your teams: a fundraising pub quiz is going to take place on 18 April in Dublin to benefit the National Campaign for the Arts! Yours truly will be setting some of the questions, and more information will be forthcoming soon, so save the date!

Our semester for the 2012-13 class in Arts Management & Cultural Policy in UCD is winding down — they’ve been a great bunch to work with this year — but applications are closing on 12 April for 2013-14 admissions. Interviews etc. are ongoing at the minute, so if you’re interested in the MA feel free to drop me a line, or submit your application ASAP.

ENCATC (the European network on Cultural Management and Cultural Policy education) has announced details of its annual Cultural Policy Research award (€10,000), aimed at young researchers in the field. Deadline is 31 May.

The Desmond Guinness Award for research on Irish art and visual culture, 1600-1900 (sponsored by the Irish Georgian Society) is also open; deadline is 26 April.

There’s lots going on at the moment concerning national provision of creative arts and media education; no doubt this will feature again on blog posts to come. Latest report is from an HEA team who’ve issued a series of recommendations in their Dublin Creative Arts Review Report.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting the four artists (Siobhan McDonald, Mark Cullen, Emma Finucane and Meadhbh O’Connor) who are currently artists-in-residence at the UCD College of Science. It was fascinating to hear about their work & its intersections with research here on campus! Fantastic stuff.

I wish my family was here for this! : The Ark has a show from the Scottish Dance Theatre on 18/19 May (What on Earth!?) that includes a pre-show pajama party! No doubt this will be a sell-out, so book tickets asap if you have little uns.

The Dublin Dance Festival (14-26 May) has just released its programme — some great-looking offerings from Ireland, Europe, Australia, etc.

I recently caught Tadhg McSweeney’s show Edifice Complex at the VISUAL in Carlow — really loved it, and thought it used that massive space incredibly well.

Brian Kennedy (Director of the Toledo Museum of Art) was one of our speakers at the annual Irish Museums Association conference in Kilkenny a few weeks ago, and has kindly passed along details of the prestigious Mellon Fellowship at his institutions aimed at future museum leaders, who’ve completed their PhD in the last 5 years. Deadline is April 15 (download details here).

Finally… lots updated today on the jobs section of the blog, but if you’re interested in project work, do keep an eye on Derry/Londonderry City of Culture opportunities: short-term work & volunteering positions are consistently being advertised. Looking forward to heading there myself in June for Theatre Forum’s annual conference!

I’m co-organizing a fab new Distinguished Speaker Series which is a collaboration between UCD’s School of Art History and Cultural Policy and NCAD’s Faculty of Visual Culture. First up (this Friday!) is David Ross, current Chairman of the MFA Art Practice program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC (and ex-director of SFMOMA, the Whitney and Boston ICA). Tickets are limited & flying out the door! The lecture is free but RSVPs are required.

Here’s the skinny on the series:

The ‘Educational Turn’ and other Detours: Art, Curating and the Academy
www.turnsdetours.ie
A Distinguished Speaker Series hosted by the School of Art History and Cultural Policy (University College Dublin) and the Faculty of Visual Culture (National College of Art and Design) with support from the Irish Museums Association.
 
How can we re-conceptualize—in theory and practice—the museum and academy as sites of possibility, transformation and change in Ireland? This public Speaker Series has been convened in response to critical challenges now facing Irish arts and cultural practice and education—including the proposed re-structuring of third-level artistic education, and the crises of funding and function impacting our national cultural institutions.

Much recent debate has centred on the notion of a ‘turn’ towards education in contemporary art practice and curation—or as Irit Rogoff has influentially described, a turn where ‘we shift away from something or towards or around something, and it is we who are in movement, rather than it.’ What shape and direction should our efforts take, as we seek to actively reshape inherited legacies of the Irish museum and academy, and transform processes of knowledge production and transfer in the 21st century? Over the coming months in 2013 we have invited a number of international scholars who have occupied senior positions in both the academy and museum to reflect on the dynamics of their own ‘turning’, the pedagogies uniting museums, galleries and the third level sector, and new models of collaboration and opportunity.

 

David Ross: The Art World is Dead
Friday, 22 February 2013
National College of Art and Design
4 p.m.

(Open to the public; RSVP required: http://www.turnsdetours.ie)
(in conversation with Declan McGonagle, Director, NCAD)

Chairman of the MFA: Art Practice program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, David A. Ross has a 40-year career as an art museum professional and educator.

Career highlights have included curatorial and senior leadership positions at the Everson Museum of Art, the Long Beach Museum of Art, and the University Art Museum at UC Berkeley; and directorships at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, the Whitney Museum, and at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  Ross was also the Co-Founder and President of the Artists’ Pension Trust (a pioneering financial planning program for working artists), has lectured at various universities across the country, and has served as juror and commissioner at a broad range of international shows and exhibitions (including Documenta, the Venice Biennale, and The Carnegie International).

Known for his willingness and proven ability to work within museums undergoing periods of significant transition, Ross has successfully rebuilt staff, public programs, collections and exhibition schedules, while enhancing the reputation and community support for the institutions that he has served.

Hello all! I’ve just started a new LinkedIn group for alumni, staff and students associated with the Diploma in Arts Administration / MA in Arts Management and Cultural Policy at UCD.

We’d love the chance to stay in touch with you & pass on news and opportunities as we receive them. We have plans to organize alumni events, and of course help in any way we can in connecting you to one another! Please follow the link above & register to join us, and send along to other classmates with whom you’re in contact.