Arts

Age & Opportunity and Nursing Homes Ireland are delighted to announce three award recipients for this year’s National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award – Mooncoin Residential Care Centre, Co Kilkenny; Borris Lodge Nursing Home, Co Carlow; and Highfield Healthcare, Whitehall, Dublin.

Now in its third year, National Arts in Nursing Homes Day takes place on the third Friday of May as part of Bealtaine Festival, Ireland’s national celebration of the arts and creativity as we age. It showcases the wonderful but often hidden creative activity taking place with residents of nursing homes and in day care centres. Three innovative arts projects were selected from entries received from nursing homes and care centres across the country. They are creatively engaging nursing home residents in projects that will be unveiled on National Arts in Nursing Homes Day, 19^th May.

An award of €1000 is going to Mooncoin Residential Care Centre, Co Kilkenny for an exciting song-writing project that is being led by musician Liam Merriman. A multi artform approach is being undertaken to bring residents’ creativity to the fore. The project will culminate with the creation of a piece of music encompassing lyrics captured from reminiscence sessions with residents. The recording with residents and a short documentary of the project will be screened at a celebratory event on National Arts in Nursing Homes Day.

The winners of two €500 awards are:

• Borris Lodge Nursing Home, Co Carlow, who will stage an exhibition of their work as part of their dynamic Borris Lace Exchange Project;
• Highfield Healthcare, Whitehall, Dublin, who will engage a local artist to facilitate AZURE – slow, art-looking – sessions with residents living with dementia.

Over the coming weeks, nursing homes across the country will be preparing art-themed celebrations for National Arts in Nursing Homes Day, 19^th May, and the Bealtaine Festival. In 2022 around 100 nursing homes across the country hosted celebrations, with 2023 looking to build upon previous years’ successes. Nursing home staff, residents, members of day care centres and their families and visitors will participate in celebrations.

Tara Byrne, Arts Programme Manager in Age & Opportunity said: “We want to support, encourage and celebrate everyday arts and creativity as an integral and vital part of the activities of the care settings around Ireland. The NANHD award does this by encouraging nursing homes and day care centres to think deeply about their residents’ interests and most importantly, potential.”

Tadhg Daly, CEO of Nursing Homes Ireland said: “National Arts in Nursing Homes Day is a very special celebration taking place in communities across Ireland recognising the creativity of people in our nursing homes and the integral role the arts fulfils in supporting them. The Award provides NHI and Age & Opportunity with opportunity to support innovative artistic projects with residents. We are delighted to support the creativity exemplified by the winning entries this year.”  

NANHD Information webinar – Thursday 30^th March, 2-3.30pm

Activity co-ordinators and any staff of nursing home or day centre who are interested in organising and registering an event to celebrate the day are invited to a free information webinar on Thursday 30^th March, 2-3.30pm.

It will include handy resources, ideas and tips for devising and planning an event.

The webinar will also be made available as a recording for those who cannot attend on the day.

Register for the webinar here.

For further information all +353 (0)1 805 7713

Age & Opportunity’s Bealtaine Festival, in association with Fingal County Council and The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, is pleased to announce two, month-long, residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. These residences aim to celebrate and support older artists at all stages of their careers working in literature and visual arts.

The residencies will offer a professional visual artist and a professional writer the opportunity to research or develop new work and, if desired, to present work during Bealtaine 2024. The award is open to writers and visual artists working in all disciplines. Bealtaine Festival, Fingal Arts Office, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre welcome and encourage applications from writers and visual artists from diverse cultural or minority backgrounds.

These residencies support the Bealtaine Festival’s aim of celebrating creative ageing, and representation in the arts of and by older people. Similarly, they address Fingal Arts goals, through its Arts Plan 2020 – 2025, of: connecting people and ideas; enabling excellence and fostering experimentation and risk taking.   This initiative also supports the three organisations’ aim to foster the professional development of artists in their ongoing practice.

The residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, located in the beautiful, tranquil setting of County Monaghan will provide an ideal environment to focus on research or the development of new work.  Applicants have the option to apply for a one-month long residency or two separate 2-week long residencies between June and December 2023 at a date to be agreed with the successful candidates.

The Residency will include:
 · En Suite accommodation and full board in the Big House at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre will be provided for a professional writer on agreed selected dates from June – December and includes quiet writing space.
· En Suite accommodation and full board in the Big House at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre will be provided for a visual artist on agreed selected dates from June – December 2023.
· Use of a visual art studio or a print studio (for artists working in print).
· A stipend of €960 for travel and material costs.

Eligibility

• Applicants must have been born, have studied, or currently reside in the Fingal administrative area.
  · Applicants must be aged 50+.
  · The successful applicants must be able to commit to their agreed chosen dates for the residency.

For further information on Fingal County Council and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre please see www.fingal.ie and www.tryoneguthrie.ie

Closing date for receipt of applications: Mon 27^th March at 4pm

For further information on the award and to apply please visit www.fingalarts.ie/news or www.fingal.ie/arts

Age & Opportunity’s Arts programme invites applications for three awards intended to support the development of older artists in Ireland and to increase the knowledge around the arts and ageing in general: the Creative Ageing Writing Bursary, Professional Development Artist Award and Emerging Artist Award. 

The deadline for all three awards is 5pm, Friday March 24^th 2023.

Applications and queries can be submitted to the Arts Programme Administrator at arts@ageandopportunity.ie.

To get a sense of the work these awards support, you can read about the 2022 award winners here.

Creative Ageing Writing Bursary 2023

Launched in 2021, the Age & Opportunity Creative Ageing Writing Bursary aims to generate discussion, debate and knowledge about the growing arts and ageing sector in Ireland. The recipient of this bursary is required to write an essay reflecting on their practice as an artist, writer, or arts worker; their experiences working with older people in the arts; or other ideas relating to the arts and ageing that influence their work, thinking and research (please note by writer we do not necessarily mean literary writer).

This essay will be published on the Age & Opportunity and Bealtaine websites, and shared widely amongst the arts and ageing sector.

It is hoped that through offering time and space for an artist to reflect on these ideas, the resulting essay will become a useful resource for people who work with or are thinking of working with older people (including older artists), while generating discussion and debate about this area of work.

In the coming years, we hope to contribute to this growing body of knowledge of the arts and ageing in Ireland as we continue to offer this award.

One award of €1000 will be made to the successful applicant.

Please read the guidelines here before submitting your application form.

Deadline: 5pm, Friday March 24^th 2023.

Professional Development Artist Award 2023

Developing as an artist is a lifelong commitment, and Age & Opportunity Arts is particularly committed to supporting new opportunities for older artists as they continue to hone their creative practice or develop expertise in other artforms.

The Professional Development Artist Award was launched in 2022 in order to support the development needs of older artists. Through this award, older artists are encouraged to seek out further learning, training, research, or other activities that benefit their career and practice.

One award of €1000 will be made to the successful applicant.

Please read the guidelines here before submitting your application form.

Deadline: 5pm, Friday March 24^th 2023.

Emerging Artist Award 2023

As part of continuing work to support older artists at every stage of their career, Age & Opportunity launched the Emerging Artist Bursary in 2022 to encourage those at an early stage in their career. There can be many barriers preventing people to take up artistic practice at a younger age, and Age & Opportunity recognises that there is no age limit on ‘emerging’. This award is also important in how it promotes the concept of lifelong learning and the ability we all have to grow at any age.

Through this award Age & Opportunity Arts would like to celebrate an exciting, up-and-coming artist aged 50+ who shows dedication and determination as they embark on a new path to becoming a professional artist. This award can be put towards activities that develop their practice further or the creation of new work.

One award of €1000 will be made to the successful applicant.

Please read the guidelines here before submitting your application form.

Deadline: 5pm, Friday March 24^th 2023.

Please note that Age & Opportunity welcomes applications from all communities, and particularly encourages artists from underrepresented communities to apply.

Ireland’s first national Arts Charter for the greater participation of older people in the arts was published today by Age & Opportunity, after a three year process of consultation and development.

The Charter sets out the arts sector’s commitment to promoting key values and guiding principles in engaging with older people. The Charter also demonstrates a commitment to the participation of older people in the arts as artists, audiences, creators, critics, teachers and learners. It considers elements such as accessibility, participation, dialogue, communication, diversity, policy and programming.

“We hope that this pioneering Charter will result in more opportunities for older people to engage in the arts across Ireland. We also hope that it leads to older people having better experiences and greater enjoyment in the arts,” said Tara Byrne, Arts Programme Manager with Age & Opportunity.

Seven organisations are piloting the Charter over 12-months: Axis Arts Centre (Dublin), The Glucksman (Cork), An Grianán (Donegal), Wexford Arts Centre (Wexford), IMMA (Dublin), IFI (Dublin) and Town Hall Theatre (Galway). They will assess how the Charter works within their organisations and test its impact on older people’s confidence in and experiences of the arts. Following the pilot, Age & Opportunity will roll out the Charter among arts organisations nationwide.

One respondent to a survey carried out during consultation on the Charter said: “I think there’s lots of excellent work being done to include and represent people of all ages [in the arts], but the barriers vary, and resources are limited, so we are a long way from equality yet.”

Others said:

“I feel that we could be doing more in accessing the potential of older people.”

“Just because I’m getting older doesn’t mean I’m incapable of offering quality workshops or quality online content.”

As part of the Charter design process, Age & Opportunity engaged with arts organisations, older artists, and older arts participants. Some of these arts participants involved described what the arts means to them. For further information see here. 

National Arts Events Listings also launched

Age & Opportunity also announced today the launch of a new section – Arts Events – that is being piloted on our Bealtaine Festival website for organisations and the public. This is a national listing of arts events welcoming for older people taking place throughout the year. It was inspired by Bealtaine Festival participants asking if it were possible to promote events which happen outside of the festival month of May. Organisations and individuals can sign up and register their events on the website so that people can check out what’s happening around Ireland between June and April.