The Fourth Plinth: One & Other

4thplinth

The new commission of the Fourth Plinth Project is strangely addictive watching: conceived by Antony Gormley, the project allows punters the chance to stand on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square for an hour– and do what they like. More than 23,000 people applied for 2,400 places (the project runs for 24 hours a day, from 6 July – 14 October). According to the project description:

He is asking the people of the UK to occupy the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London, a space normally reserved for statues of Kings and Generals. They will become an image of themselves, and a representation of the whole of humanity.

A live webcam is capturing all of the participants, and there’s short pieces on the accompanying website on most of the ‘plinthers‘. It’s attracting loads of attention, in public & online, apparently scoring more hits at the moment than Big Brother!

At the time of posting a woman was making a sculpture out of bread, in homage to Gormley’s work ‘Event Horizon’. Anxious watchers are still awaiting the inevitable nudity/defecation/similarly outre public act…

Could there be an equivalent for Dublin? Or would they have beer cans thrown at their heads? Discuss…

Creative Careers back online

I’m pleased to pass on this announcement about Creative Careers, a new-ish site that’s proved very popular for folks looking for opportunities in the Irish arts sector:

CREATIVE CAREERS BACK ONLINE

Ireland’s jobs and opportunities website for the arts/creative sector is re-launching with an extended service including an Careers Chat Forum, Training | Seminar section, Classifieds section and an RSS feed for the latest jobs and opportunities. You can also place adverts seeking Interns or Volunteers or letting Creative Space.

The site covers areas such as Theatre, Performance, Film , Literature, Arts Management, Visual Arts and Design | Digital Media. CreativeCareers.ie is now fully automated so your adverts go online in a matter of seconds and all services are completely free.

www.creativecareers.ie

I’ll continue posting opportunities specific to arts management here on the site, but for those of you seeking artist and/or volunteer openings, this is a great resource…

Connect: Artist Mentoring Project

Common Ground (the arts development agency based in Inchicore) has teamed with Create (the national development agency for collabortive arts) to deliver an action research project, ‘Connect’, on the subject of artist mentoring:

The core of Connect is a mentoring programme that brings experienced artists together with less experienced artists, to guide and support their creative process. A range of events are also taking place which present and discuss ideas about mentoring, through panel discussions, presentation of case studies and workshops. This public action research forum is one of these events. It will be of interest to artists, those working in the arts sector – particularly within the field of participatory arts practice – and those working in other sectors who have an interest in collaborating with artists or are already doing so, e.g. youth workers, community development groups, educators, healthcare professionals, etc.

The next stage of the project is a public action research forum taking place in Galway on 16 June. For more information, click below:

Background information on the project (.doc)

Programme (.doc)

Ireland & its arts centres

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Civic Theatre Tallaght

Civic Theatre Tallaght

In today’s Irish Times, a very interesting article on the expansion of arts centres during the last decade, many funded under the Cultural Developments Incentive Scheme:

If the physical landscape of Ireland will never be the same after the building boom of the so-called Celtic Tiger years, with all its modern apartment blocks and endless motorways, then neither will the cultural landscape, which has also been transformed by the country’s now-lamented economic prosperity. Nowhere has this been more evident than in infrastructural developments for the arts; the appearance of theatres, galleries and arts centres in the most surprising sites across the country: in satellite suburbs and small towns, from Coolock to Doolin to Naul.

Written by Sara Keating, the article contains interviews with then-minister Michael D Higgins, and directors of arts centres including Dunamaise Arts Centre (Portlaoise), An Grianán Theatre (Letterkenny), Civic Theatre (Tallaght). According to Higgins, fears that the newly built centres would become white elephants haven’t borne out… however it is also true that it hasn’t been an easy ride for them all: witness the recent woes of the Riverbank Arts Centre. Such places are unbelievably important to their communities as spaces for art and performance, and one can only hope they will continue to flourish with community and government support.

Now, if only something could be done about the disgrace that is the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre in Dublin…!

Facebook campaign for Irish arts workers

Members of Theatre Forum are leading the way to establish a series of Facebook group pages for the various constituencies across the country. The idea was mooted at the recent Theatre Forum annual conference, and so far 26 groups have been formed (a great summary of this year’s lively conference was written by Sara Keating in the Irish Times).

The aim is for the campaign to raise awareness for councillors and TDs of how many arts workers live in their constituencies, and support ongoing initiatives to support the arts.

To sign up to a group in your area, or to launch one in the 43 remaining constituencies, click here.