Success for Irish Organisations in Latest Creative Europe Cooperation Projects Awards

Creative Europe 2014-20, the European funding programme for the culture and audio-visual sectors, has announced the latest successful projects under its Co-operation Projects Strand. Eight Irish organisations are involved in the latest round of successful projects, as co-partners, with a combined direct Irish grant allocation of just under €624,000.

Over €2.1 million has been granted directly to Irish organisations since the start of the Programme in 2014. A complete list of funding results for all Co-operation Projects is published on the EACEA website here. The eight Irish organisations and their projects are (see below for more details of each project):

• West Cork Music: Reading for Enjoyment, Achievement and Development of Young People;
• Wexford Festival Trust: Opera Vision
• The National Print Museum: Creative Makers: kids’ fablabs for letterpress and printing;
• Fidget Feet: Vertical Dance Forum
• Cork Midsummer Festival: Circus250: Diverse, Real, Physical
• Glucksman Art Gallery: Voyage Inside a Blind Experience
• Limerick Institute of Technology: Women Equal Share: Presence in the Arts and Creative Industries
• Dublin City University: Gender Identity: Child Readers and Library Collection

'This year there were eight fantastic projects selected that have Irish partners under the Creative Europe Co-operations Funding strand. This will not only benefit the successful organisations themselves but the wider sector and Irish audiences and communities. Irish arts and culture organisations continue to compete at the highest level in Europe, building on past successes and growing their ambition with large scale innovative projects,' said Orlaith McBride, Director of the Arts Council.

The Arts Council hosts the Creative Europe Desk Ireland - Culture Office. The Culture Office provides information, advice and technical assistance to those arts and culture organisations in Ireland which are interested in applying to the Creative Europe - Culture Sub-programme.

MORE ABOUT THE SUPPORTED CO-OPERATION PROJECTS IN IRELAND

West Cork Music was successful as Irish co-partner with the project Reading for Enjoyment, Achievement and Development of Young People. This large-scale multi-annual project is led by HAUGALAND VIDEREGÅENDE SKOLE in Norway and seeks to find new ways of engaging teenagers, especially teenage boys, with the joys of literature and reading.

'West Cork Music is delighted once again to be involved in a European cultural project. We look forward to the challenge of working with six partners from all over Europe in collaboration with Cork County Library. All three Bantry Festivals have a long history of working with colleagues in Europe and further afield. At a time when borders are being closed and countries are retreating into self-absorbed populism, projects that cross borders and bring peoples together assume ever greater importance,' commented Francis Humphrys, CEO West Cork Music

The Glucksman Gallery in Cork has been successful as a co-partner on the VIBE project (Voyage Inside a Blind Experience). Fiona Kearney, Director of the Glucksman, had this to say: 'The Glucksman is thrilled to receive Create Europe funding for the VIBE project with our partners in Milan, Italy and Split, Croatia. VIBE will present a touring exhibition of 50 artworks by artists Josef and Anni Albers that will be developed with specific supports in order to provide a meaningful experience of the artworks for blind and visually impaired people.'

Cork Midsummer Festival was successful as a co-partner with Circus250: Diverse, Real, Physical led by UK partner, the creative producers, Crying Out Loud. 'Cork Midsummer Festival is delighted to be part of the successful four country Creative Europe bid for Circus250: Diverse, Real, Physical led by UK partner, creative producers Crying Out Loud. The project will enable talented hip hop theatre artists and highly skilled circus artists to work together through a year-long series of workshops, residencies and performances through the lens of football to explore the physicality of the body and sport.'

'2018 is the 250th anniversary of Philip Astley’s first modern Circus ring in London (and subsequently Dublin) and we will use this anniversary to profile contemporary innovation in European circus with the same values and draw parallels between the way circus has integrated other artforms, then and now,' said Kath Gorman, Artistic Curator, Cork Midsummer Festival

The National Print Museum was successful as a co-partner with their project Creative Makers: Kids’ Fablabs for Letterpress and Printing. The project runs from 2017 – 2017 and along with Ireland, has European partners from Italy, Estonia and Spain.

'Creative Makers (2017 – 2019) is a cooperation project that aims to innovate the traditional craft sectors of letterpress and printing through the co-creation of four kids’ Fablabs, inspired by tinkering and the maker culture.'

'These Fablabs are conceived as dedicated spaces where the audience is actively involved through a new set of workshops based on a hands-on approach, typical of children’s museums, and mixing the basics of letterpress and printing with digital fabrication and other new technologies,' Gretta Halpin-Dodd, Education Officer at the National Print Museum told us.

Fidget Feet, based in Limerick, was successful as a co-partner with Vertical Dance Forum (VDF). The project is a partnership of seven vertical dance professionals working in Europe and Canada, representative of the diversity in this artform:

'Fidget Feet Aerial Dance is thrilled to be a partner in the Vertical Dance Forum; a capacity building initiative between professionals across six European countries in the sector, facilitating and increasing international mobility through exchange, networking, reflection and promotion of practice'

'This very special trans-European initiative focuses a spotlight on the extraordinary artistic engagements that are happening to increase artistic community empowerment, engagement, and professional practice in the aerial and spectacle art forms across regional Ireland and Europe.'

Wexford Festival Opera was successful as a co-partner with the project Opera Vision. This thirty partner large-scale co-operation project has a specific emphasis on attracting and cultivating young, emerging audiences, celebrating Europe’s cultural heritage and developing opera for the future.

Limerick Institute of Technology was successful as a co-partner with the project Women Equal Share Presence in the Arts and Creative Industries (Wom@rts). Wom@rts is a large scale projects with ten European partners and focuses on the marketing and entrepreneurial capacity of female creatives.

Dublin City University was successful as a co-partner with the project Gender Identity: Child Readers and Library Collection. The project recognises the importance of gender-positive’children’s literature. The project aims to support the circulation of gender-positive literature at EU level, stimulate and encourage local libraries to grow their collections and raise awareness within local communities on the importance and benefits of gender-positive children’s literature