AIC Bursary Award 2021 Collaborative Arts and Cultural Diversity recipient: Gea Gojak

Create and the Immigrant Council of Ireland are pleased to announce Gea Gojak as the recipient of the Artist in the Community Scheme Bursary Award 2021: Collaborative Arts and Cultural Diversity.

Gea Gojak is a Croatian theatremaker who uses theatre to explore the way, the means and the language of expression and as an incentive to communicate on relevant socio-political issues. She has produced socially engaged projects that raise questions, communicate with the audience, reveal the world and society as it is, refresh and encourage critical thinking. In June 2021 she was awarded the Create and Fire Station Artists’ Studios Residency.

Gea believes in the potential of socially engaged collaborative art as a means for people to explore their creativity, express the issues that affect them, and examine different ways of being. The main interest of her work is to raise critical awareness towards society. Gea will use the Bursary to embark on a research phase, developing her collaborative theatre practice. The research will emerge from an examination of her identity that will look at the legacy of Croatian nationalism, post-war consequences, non-belonging, and resistance. She will also work with mentors and ex-Yugoslavia community living in Ireland in order to develop methods of collaborative theatre.

The purpose of the AIC Bursary award is to support and nurture professional arts practice; it is aimed at an artist with a track record of working collaboratively with communities of place or interest. The bursary of €10,000 provides the selected artist with time and resources to carry out research and to engage with and reflect on their practice. More particularly, it allows the artist to consider key questions associated with their practice using collaborative methodologies.