Weekly round-up: 2 February 2012

Michael Seaver’s written an excellent piece on 2011’s contemporary dance highlights in Irish Theatre Magazine; really whets the appetite to see more dance in 2012!

This morning Pat Wallace (Director of the National Museum) featured in an article in the Irish Times and an appearance on radio with Pat Kenny, voicing his displeasure at being ‘almost forced out’ of his position by the public sector retirement scheme. Whether Wallace would leave the Museum this spring has been the source of some speculation; news of his retirement confirms there will be a (much-needed) change of leadership after many years.

Details of the Ray Murphy Bursary were announced, which offers generous support for MA/PhD work in social finance and philanthropy (in addition to a fee waiver valid at most Irish universities, including UCD!) This is a fantastic (and rare) opportunity if you’ve ever considered pursuing a higher research degree in the subject. Deadline for applications is 20 April.

Visual Arts Ireland is hosting a meeting on 15 February with the National Campaign for the Arts to explore how the visual arts sector can participate in the NCFA’s upcoming efforts; the agenda and registration details are available online.

A post on the Guardian’s Cultural Professionals Network discussed why academia and the arts should collaborate more often. Although it focused pretty much exclusively on funding universities can provide, the research, teaching, and personnel resources (both from scholars and students) at unis offer an equally attractive reason to work together!

The Guardian also reported yesterday on the Prado’s discovery of a contemporaneous copy of the Mona Lisa, an unusual find that will shed new light on the iconic painting.

You may recall Business to Arts’ recent briefing on the Sky Arts Futures scheme, which is offering five young artists a £30,000 bursary. The deadline’s coming up (24 February), and it’s open to Irish entrants!

The Arts Council celebrated its 60th anniversary with an audience with President Michael D Higgins today; details of recipients of €740,000 in grants for touring and dissemination were also recently announced.

The Science Gallery’s new exhibition ‘Edible’ opens on the 10th of February; as usual the accompanying talks and workshops look fab!

Finally, if you’re looking for something to do with your honey on Valentine’s Day, check out Temple Bar Cultural Trust’s ‘Date with Dublin’ — fantastic free and affordable date ideas in collaboration with cultural organisations across the city; download details here!

Weekly round-up: 20 January 2012

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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.

Weekly round-up: 10 January 2012

One day left for applications to be Curator of the Venice Architectural Biennale!

A few bits and pieces for the first round-up of the new year:

In case you missed it in December, the Arts Council has finally released details of a new policy on opera — hopefully this will go some way towards mitigating the disastrous handling of the sector to date by the Council and the Department.

Bob Collins was announced in late December as the new Chair of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Thinking of going freelance in the new year? The Guardian Culture Professionals blog had a few good tips…

Applications are open for the Irish Curator of the Venice Architectural Biennale 2012 (but only until tomorrow, January 12!)

As of January 1st, the Artist Resale Right in Ireland was extended to heirs of artists (and not just living ones). The Irish Times provided a brief summary of the benefits artists & their descendants are now entitled to, with more info available from the Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO, which incidentally came to life as a project by several of our MA students some years ago!)

The Science Gallery’s flagship exhibition for 2012 ‘Hack the City‘ is currently accepting proposals for: ‘Installations, Mass-participation experiments, Events, Performances, New products/services/start-ups, Workshops, Apps, Visualizations, maps and mashups’. Funding is available and proposals are due by 20 January.

Black Church Print Studio has an intriguing-sounding exhibition coming up, especially for an ex-pat Angelena like me:  ‘From Dublin to LA and Back’, an exchange between BCPS and the LA Printmaking Society will be on show at Monster Truck Gallery in Temple Bar from 12-28 January.

Laurence Mackin provided a very useful summary of arts funding and training schemes open for 2012 (covering both North and South). In a similar vein, Community Action Forum (NI) recently compiled a great list of small grants available to community groups seeking project funding.

An interesting editorial on challenges for arts policy was published in the IT on 29 December.

One of the best pieces of arts policy journalism I’ve read in a major daily for some time was David Edgar in last week’s Guardian, musing on ‘Why Should We Fund the Arts‘?

Can you tell the difference between a Stradivarius and a newer violin? A fun test and report on new research from NPR…

A little over 20 days until applications close for World Book Night 2012! I gave away loads of free copies of Beloved last year, it was great fun! Sign up to be a giver on their website…

The PhotoIreland Festival has announced its theme for this July’s festival, and it’s just up my street: ‘Migrations: Diaspora & Cultural Identity’.

Happy new year!

National Geographic's Photo of the Day, 31 Dec 2011

No doubt about it, 2011 was a rough year… here’s looking ahead to 2012! Jobs have been updated, and a weekly round-up is soon to follow!