Following a major funding commitment by the Arts Council for 2013 and 2014, the Arts Council, Arts and Disability Ireland (ADI), Cork City Council, Galway City and County Councils, and Mayo County Council worked together to create Ignite.
This is a unique and innovative approach to commissioning and touring ambitious new work by artists with disabilities. Ignite builds on an Arts and Disability Networking model rolled out in each of the local authority areas over the past 5 years, and has been made possible with additional financial investment from each of the local authorities and ADI.
Ignite will support collaborative commissions to create new work, led by internationally-recognised artists with disabilities. The artists will work in tandem with Arts Council-funded local venues, organisations and festivals in Cork city, Galway and Mayo as well as with the local disability communities and groups. There will be three commissions in total, each to the maximum value of €60,000.
Orlaith McBride, Director of the Arts Council, said
"Ignite represents a major investment by the Arts Council in the area of Arts and Disability. It has involved five years of steady development work at local level with our partners in each of the local authorities and Arts & Disability Ireland. This has culminated in a unique new creative alliance between the Arts Council, ADI, Cork City Council, Galway City & County Councils and Mayo County Council, to commission ambitious and challenging new work from artists with disabilities. We expect this to raise the bar on work being produced and presented by local venues and festivals and provide the opportunity for both new and existing audiences to experience some of the best arts and disability work being created internationally today."
Ignite will award one commission in each local authority area, Cork city, Galway and Mayo by the end of 2013. Following that, in 2014, each new work will be presented at local level. The initiative will conclude with a tour of one of those new commissions to all three counties (and beyond) in Spring 2015.
Details on the application process are available on the Arts & Disability Ireland website www.adiarts.ie/news/ignite.
The closing date for submissions is Thursday, 26 September 2013.
←Return to the news