About Us: Who We Are

Create is the national development agency for collaborative arts.

Our mission is to provide advice and support services to artists and arts organisations working collaboratively with communities of place and/or interest

Create supports artists across all artforms who work collaboratively with communities, be they communities of place or communities brought together by interest. Collaborative arts is a dynamic and contemporary form of arts practice. Related and similar ways of working can come under the headings of participatory arts, socially engaged arts and in the theoretical realm closely linked to relational aesthetics. Collaborative arts practice plays with and contests notions of authorship and the idea of the artist-genius. Work that is made collaboratively often exists outside of the gallery or takes place outside the traditional theatre space. It can also be interdisciplinary and for example involve a musician working with a visual artist or an architect with a dance artist. Create seeks to foster current and future potential for collaboration between artists and communities, encouraging art projects that reflect the exciting ways in which collaborative arts represent a complex range of ideas and approaches.

Artists and arts organisations working collaboratively with communities of place and /or interest is widely seen as one of the most vibrant and challenging areas of arts practice, requiring skills of negotiation and project management. The exploratory processes and practices of collaborative arts demand different approaches to traditional definitions of art, artists and arts development.

Create responds to these demands by offering a range of services for artists and arts organisations which include Professional Development, Learning Development, Project Management and Consultancy and Projects and Initiatives that support and develop collaborative arts.

Partners

No successful organisation can work in isolation and over the years, in its different incarnations, Create has had the privilege of working in fruitful partnership and collaboration with many groups and organisations. These include:

The Arts Council, Arambe Productions, Arts & Disability Ireland, The Ark, Dublin, British Council Ireland, European Capital City of Culture Cork 2005-Credit Union Residencies, CityArts, Clann Credo and Comhairle, Dublin City Council, Dublin City Development Board, Fire Station Artist Studios, National College of Art & Design, Dublin, Middlesex University, ResCen, England, South County Dublin Council, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Angeliribelli/Network 7 – European coalition of arts/cultural associations, World Refugee Day Awards – Integrating Ireland, NCCRI, National Youth Council of Ireland.