Arts + Health Check Up Check In 2018

Arts + Health Check Up Check In 2018

Create, in collaboration with partners www.artsandhealth.ie/ Waterford Healing Arts Trust and Create, Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, Crawford Art Gallery, Cork Kerry Community Healthcare Health & Wellbeing and Niche Community Health Project, are delighted to announce the programme for Arts + Health Check Up Check In 2018. Themed Building Momentum, this leading national arts and health event will feature the award-winning director and writer Professor Anna Furse, FRSA, who will give the keynote address, and presentations by some of the most innovative and creative practitioners working in arts and health in Ireland today. Check Up Check In 2018 takes place on Thursday 26 April, with an optional workshop on the 27th April, at The Crawford Art Gallery in Cork and is open to healthcare professionals, arts practitioners and anyone interested in learning more about this exciting field.

Following the tremendous success of Check Up Check in 2017 and recognising the learning that has taken place in the arts and health sector over the last decade, the theme of this year’s event is Building Momentum. Participants will be invited to explore the importance of communication in partnership and how to challenge and nurture their creativity. In her keynote address, Performance in the Medical Gaze, Prof. Furse will introduce ways in which she has worked in medical environments and with medical professionals to develop performance projects which have focused on the ‘body spectacular’ through representation of the body from Renaissance Anatomical Art to Imaging Technologies. She will further share her knowledge of theatre, writing, medical humanities and interdisciplinary collaborations at a special workshop the following day, Friday 27 April. Entitled Interiority, this workshop will introduce aspects of Prof. Furse’s research towards her digital artwork I’m Not a Piece of Meat in order to reflect on how culture and medicine are braided historically. Prof. Furse is a recipient of a CAPP (Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme) commission for I’m Not a Piece of Meat (2018). CAPP is a transnational programme co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Check Up Check In promotes solidarity among arts and health practitioners and this year’s event provides opportunities for participants to share their experiences, exchange ideas and support and inspire each other in their practice through a range of themed presentations, including:
– What’s My Practice?
– Sticking Points: What to do when you get stuck
– Arts and Health in the Workplace
– The Second Hand of the Clock

Arts and health programmes comprise a range of arts experiences, presented in healthcare settings, for the benefit of health service users, healthcare staff and artists. This expanding field of work fosters creativity, wellbeing and access to the arts and is based on partnership between the artists, arts organisations and those working in healthcare and/or the wider community. Check Up Check In 2018 is funded by the Arts Council and the HSE, with additional support from Cork Kerry Community Healthcare Health & Wellbeing.

About Professor Anna Furse, FRSA*

Anna’s 20-year career as an award-winning director and writer of over 50 international touring productions includes Artistic Direction of Paines Plough (1990-1995), with whom she pioneered new writing dramaturgies. Anna’s projects in her full-time academic career have delved into eating disorders, hysterias, (sub)fertility and reproduction, anatomy, and the woman’s presence in the medical gaze, and have been funded by the Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England. Her current project The Theatre of Our Bodies includes Anna Furse Performs an Anatomy Act: a show and tell, and a digital artwork I’m Not a Piece of Meat (2018), commissioned by Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts in Ireland, and CAPP (Collaborative Art Partnership Programme, a transnational programme co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union); and an interdisciplinary talks series Interiorities (2017), co-curated with Dawn Kemp, Director of Museums and Archives, Royal College of Surgeons. At Goldsmiths, University of London, she co-directs The Centre of the Body. A frequent international conference speaker and workshop leader, her publications include chapters, several plays, and an anthology she edited Theatre in Pieces: Poetics, Politics and Interdisciplinary Collaboration (Methuen 2011).

*Fellow of the Royal Society of Artists

Further details and booking information from artsandhealth.ie