Arts Council awards €71K to Fingal for Public Art & Climate Change project
The Arts Council has awarded €71,000 to Fingal County Council, Wexford County Council and Dublin City Council.
The grant was awarded as part of the Arts Council’s Invitation to Collaboration Scheme which investigates the role of the arts in raising awareness of climate change and biodiversity issues along the east coast.
This award is following a research phase in 2017 in which €15,520 was awarded, making the total investment €86,520.
The funding will be used to support a series of artists’ residencies. These will explore coastal discussions in Fingal, Dublin & Wexford between artists, communities, curators, biodiversity officers and academic specialists. The aim of this collaboration is to creatively highlight shared concerns on climate change influences and biodiversity of our east coast. The Collaboration also includes a partnership with UK Art & Ecology Commissioning Agency Invisible Dust.
The Arts Council confirmed the award as part of their ‘Invitation to Collaboration’ scheme aimed at Local Authorities, which promotes unique collaborations through working better together and promoting high quality access to and engagement with the arts.
Fingal County Council’s Public Arts Coordinator, Caroline Cowley said: “I am delighted that Fingal’s Art Office has been awarded this funding to facilitate collaboration between those in the Art community and Biodiversity specialists to creatively explore and raise awareness of Climate Change and how it affects our landscape.”
Speaking at the launch of the scheme on Wednesday 17, October, in the Irish Aerial Creation Centre in Limerick, Director of the Arts Council, Orlaith McBride said: “We are inspired by the ambition and creativity of the proposals we receive from Local Authorities. Collaboration between the Arts Council and local authorities is where we see public engagement in the arts at its most informed, most considered and most artistically ambitious. I am confident this funding will help foster a distinctive artistic and environmental collaboration within and among local authorities, which will result in unique public engagement opportunities.”