Image credit: Box, Jijo Sebastian.

Create and Counterpoints Arts are pleased to announce

A Summer School on Cultural Diversity

An initiative of The Irish Arts Council’s Artist in the Community Scheme, managed by Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts.

The Artist in the Community Scheme (AIC) is funded by the Arts Council and managed by Create. The scheme has a long history in the development of collaborative arts in Ireland. It was established in 2002, with the aim to encourage and support meaningful collaboration between communities of place and/or interest and artists.

From film making with divers off Malin head, Co. Donegal, dance in Cape Clear Island, Co. Cork, sound art with Beekeepers in Limerick, to visual arts with Migrant Women’s Group in Dublin, the AIC scheme continues to support dynamic collaborations across art forms and context areas in all the corners of the country.

Cultural Diversity and the Arts has always been a priority area for the Arts Council and Create and has for a long time been part of our thinking. We are delighted to announce this opportunity for up to 15 artists.

About the summer school

The concept of ‘cultural diversity’ is often read as abstract and detached perhaps overly mired in policy and technical language. It’s a repeated term but how does it resonate as an essential, dynamic part of everyday life? What might ‘cultural diversity’ mean in practice: in people’s intimate lives, in neighbourhoods and within communities of place and interest?

How might ‘cultural diversity’ form an intrinsic part of the artistic, socially engaged process and act as a powerful driver for social change?

A key aim of the summer school is to create a peer-to-peer space in which to explore the concept of ‘cultural diversity’ and its various applications through the lens of the AIC Scheme which has resulted in rich cultural ecosystems and cross-sector methodologies.

The summer school will be interdisciplinary in both curriculum and composition of participants, presenters and facilitators It  will take the form of a four-day residency enabling a ‘think and do’ collaborative approach, utilizing creative workshops, critical and comparative case studies, one-to-one mentoring, international guest speakers including curators, policymakers and activists.

Directed by: Áine O’Brien Co-Director, Counterpoints Arts

Visiting speakers and facilitators:

Mary Ann DeVlieg

Khaled Barakeh

Who should apply?

• Emerging, mid-career and established artists, based in the Republic of Ireland, that have a collaborative arts practice (working in any artform including architecture, circus, street art and spectacle, dance, film, literature, music, opera, theatre, visual arts and traditional arts).
• Artists who are interested in exploring the questions outlined above alongside their individual and shared practice
• Artists who are migrants, refugees or applicants for international protection in a position to take up this opportunity will be prioritised