Welcome to the September 2023 edition of the Smashing Times Newsletter. The theme this month is Peace and Democracy, tying in with the UN’s International Day of Peace on 21 September

Peace is not possible without democracy, and vice versa. With wars raging in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Ukraine, and many other countries worldwide, we have cause to reflect on the pillars of any peaceful, functioning society. These include equal opportunity and respect for everyone, regardless of their skin colour, age, gender, or any other aspect of identity. Prejudice, at its core, is superficial, blinkered. We all have a right to be valued as human beings, a value that can’t be compromised by how we look or where we come from. A value that finds its justification in the simple fact of our existence. And, of course, there’s freedom of expression. How better to reflect on these themes than through the free expression of art?

Democracy, in particular the democratic rights of children, is a major theme in For Your Own Good by this month’s Featured Artist, Dijana Milošević. Following that are artworks from Paul Laurence Dunbar, Horace Nicholls, Luke Brennan, and Amélie Beaury-Saurel, the programme for our upcoming Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival, grant opportunities, and more.

Favourite Quotes

‘It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.’
– Audre Lorde

‘Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.’
– George Bernard Shaw

Recommended

She Stands for Peace by Dr Yemisi Akinbobola

She Stands for Peace is a podcast series that explores the state of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Africa, through a series of dialogues with key actors. From policymakers to donors and grassroots peacebuilders, the host, Dr Yemisi Akinbobola, takes a deep dive to unpack the various insights and lived experiences of guests, while exploring the central question: 20 years after the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 was passed, how far have we come? (This resolution acknowledges the disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women and girls.) The interviews are informative and inspiring, as they reflect on, and share forward-thinking strategies for, the implementation of UNSCR 1325 post-2020. Read more here.

How to Start a Revolution by Ruaridh Arrow

This BAFTA award-winning documentary follows the work of three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Gene Sharp, an American political scientist who was known for his extensive writings on non-violent struggle, which have influenced numerous anti-government resistance movements around the world. Quiet, unassuming, and softly spoken, 83-year-old Professor Gene Sharp is celebrated by revolutionaries and feared by dictators. How to Start a Revolution reveals the hidden forces behind the headlines: the strategies passed from the jungles of Burma to the streets of Iran and the Arab Spring, and the looming battle to defend democracy in the West. Watch the trailer here.

Painting Peace: Art in a Time of Global Crisis by Kazuaki Tanahashi

A revered modern artist and Zen teacher offers an inspirational account of how his art has been the expression of a life of social activism. ‘Awakening,’ says Kazuaki Tanahashi, ‘is to realise the infinite value of each moment of your own life as well as of other beings, then to continue to act accordingly.’ This book is the record of a life spent acting accordingly: through his prose, poetry, letters, lyrics, and art, Tanahashi provides an inspirational account of his work for peace and justice, from his childhood in Japan to the present day. Included are fascinating vignettes of the seminal figures who refined his views, among them Daniel Ellsberg, Gary Snyder, Mayumi Oda, and Morihei Ueshiba, as well as striking examples of the art he has so famously used to bear witness to the infinite value of life. Read a full review here.

Art Inspires

Featured Artist: Dijana Milošević

This month’s Featured Artist is Dijana Milošević, an award-winning theater director, activist, and writer. A professor at the Institute of Modern Dance, Belgrade, she co-founded DAH Theatre, a professional theatre troupe and research centre, and has been its leading director since 1991. She is involved with several peace-building initiatives and has directed theatre shows which have toured nationally and internationally. With DAH Theatre, Dijana has collaborated with Smashing Times many times, on projects such as Arts for Human Rights and Equality Ambassadors. Furthermore, Dijana was lead artist on a unique training programme recently conducted by Smashing Timesin Istanbul, Turkey in August 2023. The training is part of Creative Connections: Using the arts and new digital technologies to promote conflict resolution and positive community relations in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and in the EU.

The show For Your Own Good, directed by Dijana Milošević, is part of the Rights4Kids project that DAH Theatre produced with parthetners from Italy (Fondazione Aida and A.T.T.I. Theatrical Association), Greece (AeroplioTeatar and Action Sinergy), and the Czech Republic (Performalita). The show is based on Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: ‘When adults make decisions, they should think about how their decisions will affect children. All adults should do what is best for children.’ The initial research for the show was done in collaboration with young people without parental care within the SOS Children Villages Foundation. Using the structure of fairy tales and their deconstruction, the show explores the problematic side of the world in which we live, with the idea of raising awareness of the rights of young people and children, but also of inspiring and motivating us not to close our eyes to the violation of these rights, but to build a path for their application.

‘We Wear the Mask’ by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
       We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
       We wear the mask!

The patient examining the mould of his own face by Horace Nicholls

In Suzannah Biernoff’s Wellcome Collection photo-article on the experimental work of facial reconstruction, she writes, ‘During World War I facial injury was often portrayed as the “worst loss of all” – a loss not just of appearance, but of identity, and even humanity.’ Though society has come a long way in terms of its attitude to people with visible disfigurement, the psychosocial burden they are faced with is still very real.

As Official Photographer of Great Britain during World War I, Horace Nicholls was commissioned to make a record of the war back home, including the laborious crafting of facial prosthetics undertaken by the sculptor Francis Derwent Wood. Wood and his colleagues would painstakingly recreate the patient’s original appearance from remaining features and pre-injury photographs. In Nicholls’ striking (and undated) photograph, The patient examining the mould of his own face, an unnamed patient comes face to face with his plaster double, and the face that once was his. Perhaps he is even reflecting upon his former self, a version of himself untainted by the horrors of war and the trauma of severe injury. Either way, it is a poignant and layered photograph which speaks not only to victims of visible disfigurement, but to all casualties of war today, and indeed anyone dealing with identity-related transitions.

Leo’ by Luke Brennan

“I’m not a fan, but he spoke well.” I said through our national day, eight can haze. It seemed so intentional, after an afternoon of no parades, to catch us all in our living rooms, your man from Fine Gael delivering the news, of drip fed panic suppressant. Tell us straight up facts, but only just enough. I remember him last month squabbling with the other two, about who was the best vessel for change. Who predicted the international health crisis and world wide deficit? The personal rock and hard place of my gambling your asthma to work retail and keep something on the plate? The mass hysteria in Argos the other day?

Gloves duck taped to hands, people done up like gangs in Mad Max; scarves, googles, full face dust masks. Auld ones fighting over the last chest freezer in stock, parents in for every board game to be got; it’s only been a week and kids are climbing the walls, lads buying out the last neoprene weights and exercise mats; Covid-19 shut down the gym’s regime, but Instagram doesn’t know that. I wonder did they all tune in the other night and feel any bit calmed? Watching Leo, the man, trying his best, with no other agenda beyond damage control. Speaking honestly for once about knowing very little, and telling people who know less. Only weeks ago, we were a country that voted for change. What I gathered from that speech; we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Luke Brennan is a writer from Kerry. He has an MA in writing from NUIG, while his work has previously appeared in Banshee and No Parties.

Dans le Bleu by Amélie Beaury-Saurel

Art is at its best when at its most democratic. Amélie Beaury-Saurel’s (1849-1924) 1894 painting Dans le Bleu depicts a woman sitting at a wooden table, her fingers wrapped around the wrist of her chin-holding hand (in a gesture of anxiety, perhaps). Before her on the table are a box of matches, a tea cup, and an open liquor decanter. The woman’s body language and expression are enigmatic: she appears worn out, and yet there is a dreamy quality to her, as though she is captivated by some comforting or hopeful reverie.

Importantly, this was painted at a time when women’s lives and experiences were far from the mainstream cultural focus. The very act of painting a woman engaging in an everyday activity – such as a contemplative, if fleeting, break from the hubbub of life – was subversive, and indeed intensely democratic. Here, ordinary women ‘s lives are validated; they are real.

According to this Mincing Words Abroad blog, ‘This painting by Amélie Beaury-Saurel was a silent but profound message regarding her thoughts on 19th century oppression of women’s rights; she disapproved.’

Smashing Times News

Smashing Times Elephant Relations Officer, Ludwig von Elephantine

Smashing Times Travel

Smashing Times Company Manager Freda Manweiler and William Caughey were in Port Elizabeth, South Africa from 27 August to 2 September. This was part of Excellence Boost Training: A Learning Training Activity in South Africa which focuses on personal and professional competence development for teachers and trainers of VET organisations with a special focus on a learner-centred approach. Freda Manweiler was delighted to present on the work of Smashing Times in Irish Schools, outlining the successes and challenges faced by the company. She had this to say: ‘During the visit to Patterson Highschool, we received an incredibly warm welcome from the students and teachers. The principal informed us that in December 1976 their Science teacher George Botha was the first person detained by the apartheid regime in connection with his activist work with the African National Congress. He subsequently died; his death is shrouded in mystery. He was 30 years old. The school has named their Science Lab after him and have a very strong science and robotics department. The students are proud of their science programme and many have gone on to win Young Scientist of the Year under a range of categories.’

Meanwhile, on 19 and 20 September, Smashing Times Facilitator/Artist-in-Residence Michael McCabe was in Reggio Emilia, Italy for a partner meeting for the Creative Europe project Theatre in Palm. The meeting was a mid-way point for the project, to allow all partners the opportunity to present and document their work to date. For Smashing Times we have organised and documented four mobilities – two inward and two outward – in 2023, sending and receiving artists and company representatives. Read more on this project here.

Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival 2023

We are thrilled to announce that the programme for the fifth annual Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival has been launched. Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality and Front Line Defenders, alongside a range of partners, present the international Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival from 13 to 22 October, 2023. The festival features exciting and innovative events that promote equality, human rights, and diversity through the arts. It takes place in Dublin, Kerry, Donegal, and Cork, with artists and speakers in attendance from Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Greece, Belgium, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. The aim of the festival is to showcase and highlight the extraordinary work of human rights defenders in Ireland and around the world, past and present, and the role of the arts and artists in promoting human rights today.

The artistic curator for the festival is Mary Moynihan, Artistic Director, SmashingTimes, and the human rights curator is Laura O’Leary, International Events and Promotions Coordinator, Front Line Defenders. The festival is supported by The Arts Council of Ireland and is a hybrid programme delivered over 10 days. It hosts an exciting blend of events happening in person and online, reaching audiences locally, nationally, and internationally. The festival comprises 21 live performances, six exhibitions, nine talks or panel discussions, four installations, three workshops, three film screenings, two partner exchanges, one podcast, and one radio documentary. Events are taking place across 17 different venues, involving 29 different organisations nationwide. There is something for everyone interested in the arts for equality, human rights, and diversity. 

Click here for the full programme of events on the official web page of the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival 2023.

Ongoing States of Independence Events

The Paradise Lost and Found: Visual Art, Film Projection, Photography, and Poetry Exhibition has been running in The Old Barracks Heritage Centre, Cahersiveen, Co Kerry, since 1 August, and will continue to do so until 31 October. The exhibition, which runs daily from 10am to 5pm, features the work of Hina Khan, visual artist and miniaturist; Amna Walayat, visual artist; and artist and Smashing Times Artistic Director Mary Moynihan. The exhibition is a visual and poetic reflection on a search for peace and ways to hold on to the courage to carry on and let ourselves shine. This event is unticketed. For more information, please click here.

Courageous Women Film Installation: A Celebration of Changemakers is currently running in The Tearooms, Glebe House, Co Donegal. Having begun on 1 August, the installation takes place Monday to Sunday, 11am-4pm, until 31 October. The exhibition consists of screenings of Courageous Women, a film inspired by a creative re-imagining of moments from the lives of Constance Markievicz, Helena Moloney, Margaret Skinnider, and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington. The film, written by Mary Moynihan, is inspired by and incorporates original writings from Constance Markievicz, poetry excerpts by Eva Gore Booth, original testimony including an adaptation from Doing My Bit for Ireland by Margaret Skinnider, original testimony from Helena Molony, and writings by Hanna Sheehy Skeffington. No booking required. Click here for more information.

10 We Admire

History is filled with famous protest art examples. Over the last 100 years, artists have been outspoken protesters on issues from LGBTQ+ rights and feminism, to equal-pay and anti-racism. Protest artwork can question, disturb, and even change the status quo. Today, protest art is coming back into fashion, and – in a social media, visually-rich world – it is more important than ever. The 20th century philosopher Theodor Adorno famously wrote that ‘all art is an uncommitted crime’. What he meant was simply that by its very nature art challenges the status quo. Throughout history, artists have reacted against oppression, violence, injustice, and inequalities. They have stood up for the voiceless and the marginalised. Protest art challenges traditional boundaries, hierarchies, and rules imposed by those in power. It’s an act of defiance. It is hugely important as it can influence the thinking of the general public, as well as leaders and politicians. Images often speak louder than words. Art can make a message accessible and universal. Below are ten artists who have addressed pressing social issues through their work.

Claudia Andujar
‘My work is about counteracting the end.’

Born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland in 1931, Claudia Andujar then grew up in Transylvania, which at the time had recently been incorporated into Romania after years of Hungarian domination. During WWII, Claudia’s father, a Hungarian Jew, was deported to Dachau where he was killed along with most of her paternal relatives. Claudia fled with her mother to Switzerland, and emmigrated first to the United States in 1946, then to Brazil in 1955 where she began a career as a photojournalist. She has dedicated more than five decades of her life to Brazil’s indigenous Yanomami people. Through photojournalism and political activism, Andujar spreads awareness of the Amazon-dwelling tribe whose physical health, cultural practices, and overall stability have been threatened by illegal gold mining and the ongoing impact of Covid. Most recently, Andujar utilised decades of friendship and collaboration with the tribe to organise The Yanomami Struggle, a group exhibition at The Shed featuring 200 of her photographs and 80 works by Yanomami artists. View her work here.

Andrea Bowers 
‘You keep trying, learn from your mistakes, learn from the people around you. It’s either quit or try.’

Andrea Bowers is an American artist who has made art across a variety of mediums, from video to coloured pencil to installation art, for over 30 years. Her work combines an artistic practice with activism and advocacy, speaking to deeply entrenched social and political inequities as well as to the generations of activists working to create a fairer and more just world. Art serves as a vessel for political expression for Bowers, whose defiant multimedia work energises and unites. ‘The Americans you scorn today must be your allies tomorrow if you are serious about changing life!’ Whether confronting violence towards LGBTQ+ communities, advocating for the rights of migrants, or opposing the American carceral state, Bowers’ work is a testament to her commitment to change, even when she has no choice but to practice, in her words, ‘radical patience in order to remain hopeful’. Her work can be viewed here.

Keith Haring

‘Art should be something that liberates your soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.’

Although he died in 1990, Keith Haring’s art activism lives on. His pop art style makes his messages accessible. Today, there are Haring T-shirts, Haring hats, Haring shoes, Haring baseball hats and badges. During the 1980s, he made art which addressed socially important issues. His specially designed posters were given out at anti-nuclear and anti-apartheid rallies. He also campaigned for AIDS awareness, through his famous slogan ‘Silence = Death’. Haring’s art forced people to talk about AIDS. The work of Keith Haring can be seen today in the exhibitions and collections of major museums around the world. Read more about his work and legacy here.

Adelita Husni-Bey

Having lived in Libya, Italy, the US, and the UK, Adelita Husni-Bey can relate to the inevitable feelings of rootlessness that arise when distanced from a country one holds dear. Incensed by the long history of mismanaged immigration systems in the US, the Milan-born artist puts her anger into activism. Chiron, Husni-Bey’s first institutional solo exhibition on display at the New Museum in 2019, included an eponymous film documenting the artist’s work with UnLocal, a New York City-based non-profit providing free legal representation to undocumented immigrants. ‘There is no law to save most people,’ was the film’s chilling first line, a statement that reverberates today. Read more and view her work here.

Jenny Holzer

‘The most profound things are inexpressible.’

Jenny Holzer is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. Holzer belongs to the feminist branch of a generation of artists that emerged around 1980. Most of her work is presented in public spaces and includes words and ideas, in the form of word art. The public dimension is integral to Holzer’s work. LED signs have become her most visible medium, although her diverse practice incorporates a wide array of media including street posters, painted signs, stone benches, paintings, photographs, sound, video, and projections. In 1989, Holzer became the second female artist chosen to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale in Italy (Diane Arbus was the first, shown posthumously in 1972). At the 44th Biennale in 1990, her LED signboards and marble benches occupied a solemn and austere exhibition space in the American Pavilion; she also designed posters, hats, and t-shirts to be sold in the streets of Venice. The installation, Mother and Child, won Holzer the Leone D’Oro for best pavilion. View her work here.

Lesia Khomenko

Lesia Khomenko is a multidisciplinary artist who reconsiders the role of painting, deconstructing narrative images and transforming paintings into objects, installations, performances, or videos. Her interest lies in revealing tools of visual manipulation in the context of history-making and myth-making. Nothing can adequately represent the first-hand horrors of war. But, Khomenko manages to take an evocative stab at the subject with her Max in the Army series from 2022, featuring larger-than-life paintings of Ukrainian soldiers. These ‘protagonists’ are ‘heroes to all Ukrainians’, the artist attests, ‘nameless and undepictable’. Last year, a selection of Khomenko’s sizeable paintings from 2016 – portraits of pre-war Ukraine – went on view at New York’s New Art Dealers Alliance, taking on a newfound significance ‘couched in the context of wartime’. Click here to view her work.

Suzanne Lacy
‘You can be an activist as a doctor, you can be activist as a psychotherapist, and you can be activist as an artist.’

Suzanne Lacy is renowned as a pioneer in socially engaged and public performance art. Her installations, videos, and performances deal with sexual violence, rural and urban poverty, incarceration, labour, and aging. Lacy’s large-scale projects span the globe, including England, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Ireland, and the US. Born in a rural, working-class community in California’s San Joaquin Valley, Lacy creates work that transcends the realm of art, often making its way into public policy debates. Read more and view her work here.

Sable Elyse Smith

‘My work always points to. . . individuals with voices and agency, with desires and cares, fear and anger.’

Sable Elyse Smith is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and educator based in New York. Using video, sculpture, photography, and text, she points to the carceral, the personal, the political, and the quotidian to speak about a violence that is largely unseen, and potentially imperceptible. Smith’s interdisciplinary work refocuses viewers’ perspectives, chronicling the internal lives of the two million individuals living behind bars in the US. Her work has been featured at MoMA Ps1, New Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, JTT gallery, and numerous others. She is currently Assistant Professor of Visual Art at Columbia University. You can view her work here.

Kara Walker
‘I have no interest in making work that doesn’t elicit a feeling.’

At times, protest art can become an accepted part of the art establishment and the canon of art history. American artist Kara Walker was recently commissioned to create the Turbine Hall for Tate Modern in London. ‘Fons Americanus’ is a 13-metre high soaring fountain that rises from two oval basins filled with water. Its form is inspired by the Victoria Memorial near Buckingham Palace but it is more a critique of colonialism than a celebration of it. It is a monumental rebuke to the evils of the British Empire. And it’s right in the heart of London in one of Britain’s most prestigious and popular galleries. To read more and view her work, click here.

Ai Wei Wei 
‘I believe the core value of an artist must be to express yourself freely and fight for the freedom of others.’

Ai Wei Wei is one of the most famous protest artists today. His work is deeply political and critical of China’s communist party. Whether it’s covering the floor of the Tate Modern with 150 tons of porcelain sunflower seeds or photographing himself flipping-off Mao’s mural on the walls of the Forbidden City, Ai’s work has drawn intense criticism from the Chinese state. In 2011 he was arrested and imprisoned by the Chinese Government for 81 days. The alleged crime was ‘economic crimes’ but the artist’s family, human rights activists, and other supporters have long said his arrest was politically motivated, because of his criticism of government authoritarianism and censorship. Even after he was released, Chinese authorities retained his passport and forbid him from leaving Beijing, placing him on modified house arrest for four years. Most recently, he has stood up for anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong. He has a team filming a documentary about the Hong Kong protests on university campuses and says these protests will influence an opera he is working on. He has called out worldwide leaders’ silence in the face of these troubling times for Hong Kong. Read more and view his work here.

News From the Network

HOUSE! by Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Theatre

Ireland’s leading circus company Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Theatre brings their Bingo? Circus! Extravaganza to Ballyshannon in October. HOUSE! brings a refreshing uplifting show that gets the audience out of their cars and dancing with our local community performers, the Fidget Feet Soar Up’s, and to original music by Fidget Feet’s own Jym Daly. It is a fun and outrageous outdoor bingo spectacle show, suitable for everyone from 6 to 96. This event takes place in the Market Yard, Ballyshannon, on 7 October, from 1:30pm-4pm, as part of the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival 2023. More details and booking here.

Human Rights Under Threat: The Arts Respond

George Szirtes, poet, will be interviewed by Mary Moynihan, artist and Smashing Times Artistic Director. He will discuss migration, human rights, and freedom of expression, and the role of poetry in these challenging times. He will also give a short reading from his work. The discussion will be accompanied by a reading from Hungarian writer and translator, Csilla Toldy. Presented by Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann in partnership with Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality as part of the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival 2023. This event takes place on 14 October, 2023 at 1pm in the Pearse Street Library Conference Centre, Dublin. More details and booking here.

National Women’s Council and Others Welcome Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ Support for Equality Referendum

A coalition of five civil society organisations, including the National Women’s Council (NWC), Treoir, One Family, Family Carers Ireland, and SIPTU have welcomed the support from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Congress) for the referendum on family, care, and gender equality and the inclusion of wording that would support care in all of its forms, including care in wider community as well as in the home.

In a statement on the matter, Congress said it ‘fully supports the recommendation of the Citizens’ Assembly that the wording on women should be replaced with a wording that recognises the value of care work in all of its forms.’ Orla O’Connor, Director of the National Women’s Council, said: ‘We really welcome the support from Congress for the upcoming equality referendum. Congress’ position highlights the broad public support for constitutional change. The upcoming referendum is our opportunity to remove limits on women’s roles from the Constitution and instead value care in all of its forms, in the home but also in the wider community.’

Remember the Defenders: A Photo Exhibition

This exhibition takes place from 18-21 October, 2023, between 10am-5pm each day, in EPIC Irish Emigration Museum, Dublin 1. It highlights 10 Human Rights Defenders around the world who have done courageous work protecting human rights, including Olivier Bahemuke Ndoole (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Jeany ‘Rose’ Hayahay (Philippines), and Segundo Ordóñez (Ecuador). From the Democratic Republic of Congo to the streets of Jordan, come and learn about the challenges faced by these outstanding human rights defenders from around the world. Presented by Front Line Defenders as part of the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival 2023. No booking necessary. Full details here.

Grants and Opportunities

For writers, artists, and creators

Waterford Arts Practice Grant 2024

Waterford Arts Practice Grants include Rural Arts Grants and Specialist Arts Grants (screenwriter/producer and playwright/producer), as well as council-supported Arts Venue Grants. These grants are a key part of Waterford City and County Council’s support of artists, arts creators, and professional community arts services. The deadline is 4 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

Arts Council Partnership Funding

The purpose of Partnership Funding is to invest in and support local authorities/statutory bodies to sustain and develop the arts in Ireland. Partnership Funding is open to local authority and statutory organisations only. The deadline is 5 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

Arts Council Arts and Disability Connects

The Arts and Disability Connect scheme is designed to support artists with disabilities to be ambitious, to develop their practice, and to connect with arts organisations and arts professionals in Ireland. The deadline is 10 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

Community Foundation Ireland: Support Available for Communities Taking Biodiversity Action

Communities are being invited to apply for support to take steps to protect local plants and wildlife. The Community Foundation Ireland is inviting applications from groups ready to develop or implement action plans which are targeted at promoting wildlife by protecting natural green areas and other habitats. The deadline is 13 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

Fóras na Gaeilge Colmcille Projects Scheme

Fóras na Gaeilge provides funding through the Colmcille Projects Scheme to help applicants foster a relationship between Scottish and Irish Gaelic language communities and to strengthen Scottish and Irish Gaelic through this relationship. The deadline is 20 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

Job Opportunities and Tenders

Maternity Cover for Creative Learning and Activate Youth Theatre Programme Director at Graffiti Theatre Company

Graffiti is looking to recruit a maternity cover for our Creative Learning and Activate Youth Theatre Programme Director. The role comprises two main areas: Creative Learning and Activate Youth Theatre. The deadline is 4 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

Fingal County Council: Deputy County Arts Officer

The Arts Office of Fingal County Council supports and promotes access and participation in the arts. They are now seeking applications for a suitably qualified Deputy County Arts Officer. The deadline is 6 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

Irish Council for Civil Liberties: Head of Research and Policy

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), Ireland’s foremost civil liberties organisation with a long and successful track record of defending human rights, is recruiting a Head of Research and Policy. The deadline is 6 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

Cork Theatre Collective: Artistic Director/Creative Producer

Cork Theatre Collective are looking for a dynamic person to lead the first phase of work devising and implementing theatre development projects and residencies. The deadline is 13 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

Mayo County Council: Westport Public Art Project 2023/24

The Westport Belmullet Municipal District Office of Mayo County Council has recently received funding to both upgrade Westport skatepark and address the recent increase of graffiti in the town. The council is therefore seeking tender applications from suitably qualified artists to enhance three areas in the town with community murals/street art. The deadline is 9 October, 2023. Further details can be reached through our Grants and Opportunities page.

That’s all for now. We hope to see you at next month’s festival, after which we will be sending out the October edition of the newsletter under the theme of States of Independence.

Bye for now,

Féilim Ó Brádaigh and Niamh Clowry