It has helped hundreds of artists to realise their visions, yet CREATE is one of the least heralded players on the arts scene, writes Angela Long.
Take a pigeon. It doesn't have to be a pigeon with talent, or deep views on life. Just a pigeon. Take a few pigeon fanciers, who are passionate about their feathered friends and want the world to know. And, key to the process, take an artist, talented, imaginative and eager to say something about life.
The result has been, on at least one occasion, a delightful book of photographs and an exhibition called Home. Central to the concept were hundreds of messages carried by the pigeons, expressing the wishes of their owners for the future. Put together by visual artist Rhona Byrne with the co-operation of the Ballymun Pigeon Club, this example of creativity is due in large part to a quiet player in the Irish arts scene called CREATE.
CREATE is an enabler - a support service for artists. It sets the wheels rolling toward taking an idea of artistic expression from the drawing board, or the mind, to a finished product/item/ event for the world to see. The name is all in capitals, for effect rather than as an acronym of anything. But this shouting is uncharacteristic - the organisation has been so low key as to be invisible to many in the mainstream Irish arts world over the past two decades.
At the same time it has enjoyed continued support from the Arts Council, and the funding to run its offices and staff, as well as disbursement of grants. This year, says press officer Katrina Goldstone, turnover of €500,000 is expected, of which €100,000 will be earned income from training, consultancy, and member subscriptions. The Arts Council subvention is €243,000, and the balance is made up of funding from a number of sources, including Dublin City Council.
So, if the name does come up, people in the arts who have heard of it often want to know what CREATE actually does. To attempt an analogy, if the Irish arts world is a bus, organisations such as CREATE could be the wheels. It has been going for 23 years, and has financed and facilitated countless projects in that time. A major task is to explain funding opportunities and how to apply for them. Its low profile is somewhat puzzling, and there may be a communication deficit.
Its behind-the-scenes nature partly explains this, as could an institutional fondness for the language of the haut art world, beloved of some arts organisations but not helpful in explaining a role to a wider audience. A journal on arts and practice in Ireland, published by CREATE and called CONTEXTS (more capitals), had a brief flowering, but ceased publication last year.
Its offices are on Earl Street, off the popularly creative hub of Meath Street in Dublin's Liberties. And CREATE offers its services to whole communities as well as individuals. A current example is Tobar na Smaointe, an exhibition on Inis Oírr in the Aran Islands. Featuring the work of Sharon Lynch and Ruby Walsh, it's an initiative of the "Artist in the Community" scheme, run by CREATE, and also a part of the past month's national festival celebrating creativity in older age, Bealtaine.
"We have two main categories for projects that come to us: research and realisation," says Sarah Tuck, the new director of CREATE. "Sometimes we will help with research, sometimes realisation, sometimes both."
In the pigeon example, which was completed some time before Tuck took over at the beginning of May, CREATE's role was to put Byrne together with the Ballymun pigeon lovers.
TUCK SAYS that one of CREATE's strong features is its national reach. "It's not Dublin-centric. Our offices are here, but we are open to working with people from all over the country. All that is necessary are exceptional work contexts, from the artists."
The expression crops up several times in her conversation, making the point that CREATE does expect serious people who have a track record of skill and talent to approach it. "We are in the business of nailing value," says Tuck.
From the other side, a community group can come to CREATE and say they would like to find an artist to give expression to an aspect of their world-view.
Tuck, who is English, studied art and literature in the British Midlands. She did her own theatre writing and production before a six-year stint in Germany, followed by periods in Russia and the United States. Her varied CV also features work with the BBC and Guardian Unlimited, the British newspaper's cutting-edge website. She has experience in new media, and talks of bringing aspects of the "digital conversation" to her role at CREATE. She also worked as director of communications and development at the London International Festival of Theatre earlier this decade.
Tuck settled in Ireland last year, and had been working with the City Arts Centre as development director. She succeeded Declan McMonagle, former head of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, who undertook the project called the Civil Arts Inquiry while at the CAC for two years. At the time Tuck was seen as a departure for CAC, which had been through tumultuous times, in part because of her CV's emphasis on new media rather than visual art.
"Ireland has changed radically, and this is reflected in the type of arts activity," Tuck says. "Work is much more interdisciplinary. A project might at core take place in the theatre, but there can be a fluidity with the work. The arts are dynamic and changing all the time. We are not shoehorning artists into only one way that they can work . . . and recognise the validity of a number of art forms."
The important "Artist in the Community" scheme, funded by the Arts Council, is one of CREATE's significant responsibilities. Last year it provided support for 97 applicants and 21 complete projects, only four of which were in Dublin. Groups as diverse as Termonfeckin Macra na Feirme, the Irish Wheelchair Association and Ionad Cultúrtha have been incubated and advised in their arts work. CREATE estimates that, overall, it gets 10,000 queries a year.
The aim of the scheme, its literature says, is to encourage intense collaboration between community groups and artists. There are two categories, with different funding ceilings. Research and development awards go up to €1,000, giving artists an opportunity to explore and develop a project in a community context. For community organisations planning major projects, there are grants between €5,000 and €10,000 for projects of up to nine months' duration. In the current round of awards, groups such as the Dublin Aids Alliance and Poulfur National School, Wexford, have been successful.
VISUAL ARTIST David Jacques, who specialises in large banners in public spaces on themes of emigration and relocation, cannot speak too highly of CREATE. They helped him set up his work As if in a Dream, Dreamt by Another. This was on view around Temple Bar last year, and Jacques is now working on a commission from the Dublin Port Authority.
"They are an absolutely unique organisation," says Jacques, who is from Liverpool. "In the first place, they put me in touch with people I wanted to work with. I had a residency at the Fire Station studios in Dublin 2, and needed to establish relationships with the local people there. CREATE could advocate for me, tell people what I wanted to do and demystify what it was all about."
He ended up with 12 individual stories of emigration, most of residents whose families were from other countries, and also of Irish people who had gone to live abroad. "When you are doing something like this, it is of great help to have people fostering real relationships. You can't just parachute in overnight and expect trust."
CREATE was also valuable in steering him through the maze of funding and bureaucracy that accompanies artistic effort these days, he says. Sharon Lynch, of the project on Inis Oírr, agrees. She came to work with local women, especially in traditional crafts, after a stint in the Aran Islands last year, and the group applied for an "Artist in the Community" grant which was initially refused.
"CREATE was incredibly helpful in telling us why we hadn't succeeded, how we should present our project, and the importance for an ongoing, sustainable aspect to the work," Lynch says.
Funding is the bottom line for every project, and the organisation runs training courses nationally, explaining to groups and individuals how to navigate the maze of applications for grants from the Arts Council and other benevolent entities. Arts and Disability Ireland (ADI), headed by Padraig Naughton, is also accommodated at the Earl Street premises. Tuck says CREATE is "incubating" ADI and another new entity, Eblana, which does grassroots training and event-making.
CREATE is at 10/11 Earl Street South, Dublin 8. For further information, call 01-4736600 or see www.create-ireland.ie
