Northern Ireland | Artists taking the lead

Shortlisted:

Helen Sharp and the Northern Irish Contemporary Arts Collective

AN ART ODYSSEY
We propose a multi-disciplinary and holistic approach to ATL. Our project will explore sporting activities and their landscapes across Northern Ireland. The project encourages local participation in a diverse array of both sporting activities, creative events and through everything from an 'invent a new sport' competition for schools, to the creation of the fabulous 'Mobile Centre' the heart of the project and our Olympic Torch of sorts!. The Mobile Centre is essentially a mobile gallery that will travel far and wide across the nation, visiting towns and villages that don't have art galleries. We will not only showcase beautiful new works of art made for the project but will also offer exhibition space for local artists and crafts people to exhibit their work. The mobile Centre will also screen films and be a hive of activities pertinent to the project... imagine Irish road bowls in Armagh one day and on the banks of Upper Lough Erne the next, or a heady mix of orienteering and plein air painting through the Sperrins!.... The Mobile Centre will also have an installation in the form of a fully working radio station (FM and digital) and will broadcast live and recorded programmes, music and commentary by locals everywhere it goes. The project will have a fully interactive website for the duration based around a map which tracks all events in all locations. This will act as a digital point of access to what's happening, it'll also be a place to see the entries to competitions, galleries, documentation of the journeys, our public postcard feedback section and also to nominate your house, village, town or mountain to have a commemorative compass installed any where you like! 'Zero Degrees of Separation' is an installation of 2012 of these compasses over the duration of the project.

"Put your gutties on Mother! We're off on an ART ODYSSEY!"

Paul Hutchinson

Paul Hutchinson proposes The Big Deep Breath – a series of art events that would showcase the population breathing. This would include films, performance and sound recordings involving and exploring the physical and philosophical action of people breathing – during exercise, sleeping, dancing, walking, anxious, happy. Local athletes and celebrities would participate alongside all members of the community, while the project also proposes to put performed breathing into broadcast schedules and the school curriculum. This life-affirming and celebratory communal exercise would culminate in a large scale ‘group breathe’ and an exhibition of work from the project.

Verbal Arts Centre and Northern Ireland poets

The Verbal Arts Centre proposes Inspire poetry 2012 – a celebration of the imaginative potential of poetry in the lead up to the Games. The project would see all sections of the community, of all ages and abilities, getting involved and inspired to start reading and writing poetry. It would be led by some of Northern Ireland's internationally acclaimed poets like Michael Longley or Ciaran Carson and include a new collection of poetry for 2012, while also having an interactive website and a publication of participants’ work and concluding with a major event at the ancient oral storytelling site of Drum Ceatt.

Rita Duffy

Rita Duffy proposes Thaw – a project that would take the enduring legacy of the Titanic as a starting point of an exploration of the psychological landscape that emerged from the iconic ship’s meeting with an iceberg; the recent troubles in the country; as well as looking at the implications of global warming. The project would produce a number of site specific works, including an ice corridor on the Belfast Peace Line, that would be inclusive, magical and reflect local, national and global issues.

Northern Ireland’s panel were fascinated by Brian Irvine’s The NEST and how it responded to all the core aims of Artists taking the lead. The NEST is a celebration of Northern Ireland’s diversity, of the general public’s creativity in telling their own stories and their artistic interpretation of objects important to them. It offers a lasting legacy connecting that diverse range of public participation through a final performance and a sculptural piece representing all individual contributions in a collected and universal way. We see the project capturing the public imagination and involving a wide audience in celebrating the arts and our creative involvement in London 2012.

Damian Smyth

Head of Arts Development

Cian Smyth

London 2012 Creative Programmer for Northern Ireland. Previously, he worked for UK Film Council and Northern Ireland Screen and was board member of Belfast Film Festival where he established an international competition for documentary film in association with Maysles Films. He continues to programme world cinema for various film festivals in Ireland.

Paul Seawright

Professor of Photography at the University of Ulster and was formerly Dean of Arts and Media at the University of Wales, Newport, where he was awarded a personal chair in 2001. A practising photographer he has exhibited extensively and represented Wales at the 2003 Venice Biennale of Art.

Damien Gorman

Professional writer and creative writing tutor for well over 20 years. In that time his work has garnered awards as diverse as a Better Ireland Award and an MBE; a BAFTA and a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council. He has new plays opening in November and December this year.

Simon McWilliams

A multi award winning artist who has exhibited extensively in Ireland, London, Europe and the United States. Simon's work is included in the Guinness collection, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, The Allied Irish Bank collection, Queens university and the University of Ulster. His sixth solo exhibition will be at the Skotia Gallery, Santa Fe in 2010.