Artist in Community Scheme Information Session 25th August 2026
Event · Information session
Twice yearly, the Arts Council offers Artist in the Community Scheme grants to enable artists and communities of place/or interest to work together on projects. The scheme is managed by Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts.
The AIC scheme is open to artists from any of the following artform disciplines: architecture, circus, comedy, dance, film, literature, multi disciplinary arts, music, opera, street arts and spectacle, theatre, traditional arts and visual arts. The projects can take place in a diverse range of social and community contexts eg arts and health; arts in prisons; arts and older people; arts and cultural diversity. The aim of the scheme is to encourage meaningful collaboration between communities of place and/or interest and artists.
Create is pleased to announce an online information session on applying to the Artist in the Community (AIC) Scheme, with previous recipient Tess Leak and Tatiana Dos Santos, AIC Scheme Programme and Development Support.
The information session is about answering any questions you might have about making an application to the Scheme. It’s also about sharing experience of developing and delivering a collaborative project through the Scheme. If you are an artist or a community organisation interested in the Artist in the Community Scheme but don’t know where to start, come talk to us. If you are an artist interested in developing a collaborative project with a community organisation or in a community situation this event is for you. If you are an artist who has applied before and would like to access further detail on the application process, please join us.
Tess Leak is an artist who has been working in arts and health, and community settings for the past 16 years. With artist Sharon Whooley she is co-founder of participatory projects the Museum of Song and the Museum of Birds and Beasts, which recently collected stories from the residents of 9 islands off West Cork. In 2024 and supported by Create, Tess founded the Creative Siblings Network which connects adults shaped by the experience of growing up with a sibling with a disability or chronic illness. A graduate of the BA in Visual Art on Sherkin Island and The Curious School of Puppetry in London, inclusion is at the heart of all her work
