2020 Bursary: Collaborative Arts and Cultural Diversity
2019 AIC Scheme Summer School on Cultural Diversity and Collaborative Practice. Photo: Joseph Carr
The 2020 Bursaries in Collaborative Arts and Cultural Diversity and Collaborative Arts and Human Rights mark ten years of the AIC Scheme and reflect Create’s belief that by working together, artists and communities can purposefully explore how collaborative arts engage in distinct, relevant and powerful ways with the urgent social, cultural and political issues of our times. Recent weeks have seen unprecedented mobilisation and reaction to human rights violations. Create believes that arts practice plays a key role in advancing the cause of equality, a belief reflected in the Arts Council’s Equality, Human Rights and Diversity policy of 2019.
The objective of the Artist in the Community Scheme Bursary Award is to support individual professional artists whose practice centres on collaboration with individuals or groups (non-arts professionals). The AIC Bursary Award 2020: Collaborative Arts and Cultural Diversity, offered in partnership with the Irish Refugee Council, specifically aims to support individual professional artists from a minority ethnic or migrant background working in collaborative socially engaged arts practice.
The purpose of the 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. The bursary of €10,000 provides the selected artist with time and resources to carry out research and to reflect on their practice. More particularly, it allows the artist to consider key questions associated with cultural diversity using collaborative methodologies.
It is expected that the successful applicant will share the learning arising from the bursary with the wider collaborative arts and cultural diversity sector. Create will work in partnership with the Irish Refugee Council in providing an information session and on the selection process. The closing date for applications to this bursary is the 17th August 2020. Applications are now open using the application form linked on this page. Please ensure you read the Guidelines document thoroughly before beginning the application form.
The AIC Scheme Bursary Award is aimed at an artist who:
- Works collaboratively with individuals and groups (non-arts professionals) in the making and interpreting of art
- Considers and prioritises the quality of engagement at all stages – e.g. in the planning, making and evaluation of work
- Demonstrates a clear commitment to artistic outcomes
The award aims to support professional artists to develop their collaborative arts practice.
The Irish Refugee Council provide services and support for people seeking protection and people recognised as refugees in Ireland and advocate for humane and dignified protection procedures and responses to people fleeing persecution.
They work with people who have to flee their home country, as it is no longer safe for them to be there. The most visible example of this is people fleeing war or conflict. However, persecution is not always born of war or conflict. They also work with people who face persecution that is less visible. People who have experienced torture, death threats, and violence because of aspects of their identity or their actions – persecution based on their sexual identity, their religious beliefs, their political stance, for protesting, for being female or for being an ethnic minority.
