Expanding from its pilot programme in Tuam, several new places including Shannon, Co Clare will receive research awards to develop their Creative Places.
Creative Places is an opportunity for places which had not benefitted from sustained arts investment in the past to build local arts programmes which will benefit the people who live in these places. Each programme will have a coordinator or researcher who will begin local conversations to discuss and plan a range of brilliant creative and participatory projects for local people to take part in and enjoy.
The programme builds upon existing local cultural strengths and is based on dialogue, listening to what matters locally and reaching people who may have barriers in participating in an active cultural life.
Director of the Arts Council, Maureen Kennelly said, “We are delighted to be significantly investing in these places in this focused manner. It is very important to us that public investment in the arts reaches and benefits more people in a sustained and meaningful way. We look forward to seeing the ambitious new projects that these inspiring communities create together and we are excited by the prospect of supporting them to celebrate and animate new places.”
Each programme is led by different consortiums made up of local authorities, community development organisations and arts organisations, it will create employment for coordinators, artists and researchers interested in place based arts development.
Reacting to the announcement – Siobhán Mulcahy, County Arts Officer said, “Shannon is unique, the only new town to be developed in Ireland in the last century. The pioneers who established its first communities are now the older generation, a generation that has shown resilience and fortitude.
Shannon is a town of welcomes, it welcomed and developed new communities from near and far when it was established, and this warmth is evident today in its community spirit. This spirit now gets to be explored creatively through the Creative Places initiative and we look forward to seeing our creative and cultural ambitions realized”.
Over the summer the programme will be getting established, a Researcher will be appointed and conversations with the community will get underway. To keep in touch with how the project develops, the programme will be managed by Clare County Council smulcahy@clarecoco.ie.