AIC Scheme Bursary Award Recipient (Collaborative Arts and Cultural Diversity): Amir Abu Alrob

Create and the Irish Refugee Council are pleased to announce Amir Abu Alrob as the recipient of the Artist in the Community Scheme Bursary Award 2020: Collaborative Arts and Cultural Diversity.

Amir is an actor and theatre-maker originally from Palestine, who has recently received Refugee status in Ireland. Amir has over six years’ experience as a collaborative theatre practitioner, working with Palestinians living in camps in occupied territories, with women’s groups, and in his capacity as an asylum seeker.

Amir intends to use the bursary in research and development of a collaborative artistic project arising from a personal conflict that will look at the legacy of colonisation and occupation, identity, trauma, survival, resistance (personal, cultural and national) in the search for the real meaning of freedom. Amir will work with key mentors and collaborators exploring propaganda and the formation of national identity, including parallels between Irish and Palestinian identities, and plans to share his work in Summer 2021.

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

The panel which awarded this bursary was chaired by Áine Crowley, Programme Manager Arts and Engagement, and consisted of Anthony Haughey, artist and a lecturer in TU Dublin;  Rory O’Neill, Integration Projects Manager of the Irish Refugee Council; Hina Khan, artist past awardee AIC Artist Residency; Kath Gorman, Arts Participation Advisor, Arts Council. Create staff members Evgeny Shtorn, Jane O’Rourke observed and took minutes.