artscape: Whoops. The Kilkenny Arts Festival has just lost both its artistic director and its manager.
In fact the two events are unrelated - manager Marion Gowran, who was appointed only last year, signalled before Christmas that she was planning to move back to Mullingar for personal reasons, and finished up this week. Director Claudia Woolgar, who took over at the helm of the festival in December 2002, resigned after programming just two festivals. It must have been a tall order for Woolgar, taking on the mantle of director at that stage of the year, starting with a clean slate, in a new country. Woolgar's departure "follows wrangling between her and the board over financial and artistic issues", the Kilkenny People reports a "source close to the board" as saying.
The festival board is tight-lipped about reasons, but stresses it was not an unexpected departure this week, contrary to some suggestions, but was indicated six or seven weeks ago. Nonetheless, it leaves a gap mid-way through the programming cycle. The board of the festival said in a statement this week that she departed to "pursue other interests". The board wished her well this week and acknowledged her contribution to the festival.
A new manager has been recruited already and will be announced in a week or so. But instead of appointing a new director now, the festival board is already well on the way with putting together a panel of experts in a range of art forms, and the artistic programming of this year's festival will be a collaborative effort. As one of the reactions to Woolgar's departure, Maureen Kennelly, the very able arts consultant and producer, has joined the board, just a year and a half since she left the post of director. This week she said the board hopes to appoint a new festival director after this year's event, and that it was a more practical arrangement to have a panel of respected experts - which they are not announcing at this point - to finish programming this year. She highlighted the experience on the board, with which some members have been involved for five or six years, and was enthusiastic about the continuity this gives.
Kennelly said the board sees the festival continuing from the late 1990s, particularly engaging with the landscape of Kilkenny in terms of site-specific work. In that vein, the festival will be working again this year with Performance Corporation, whose well-received Dr Ledbetter's Experiment engaged imaginatively with the city in a gothic thriller last year. But the events at Woodstock Gardens in Inistioge - a classical concert and fireworks, and a day-long outdoor rock festival, which had mixed reactions, to say the least - are unlikely to be repeated, though there may be a scaled-down version elsewhere, she said.
The festival runs from August 12th to 22nd, and the programme will be announced in late June, according to Kennelly.
On another Kilkenny note, it was confirmed this week that the Cat Laughs comedy festival, on the June bank holiday weekend, has managed to secure a new sponsor - Kilkenny brewery Smithwicks. The Cat Laughs had a double blow earlier this year when it lost its title sponsor Murphy's and its Arts Council funding.
Irish faces out in force
The great and the good of the Irish community were reportedly out in force on Tuesday night for the opening of Conquering England, the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) about the Irish in politics, arts and journalism in Victorian London.
Elegant Jameson and elderflower cocktails, Richard Corrigan's food, gorgeous surroundings and an exhibition curated by Roy Foster and Fintan Cullen which celebrated the contribution of the Irish to British intellectual life - sure, why wouldn't it be a great evening?
Speakers included the Irish ambassador, His Excellency Dáithi Ó Ceallaigh, and the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and guests included Fiona Shaw, Thaddeus O'Sullivan, Victoria Glendenning, Simon Schama, historian Dr Mary Lou Legge, artist Liz McGill, historian Ian McBride, publisher John Mulcahy and Sheila Pratschke of Annaghmakerrig.
The William Orpen show currently at London's Imperial War Museum, entitled Politics, Sex and Death, covers the range of Orpen's work and has been well received in London. In many ways the material in the intriguingly titled Conquering England (from a Shavian quote) laid the groundwork for Orpen.
The question on at least some people's lips is: why isn't Conquering England going to be seen in Ireland? And, indeed, it would seem that the two shows would make a great double act. Politics, Sex and Death will be at the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin from June 1st, but the gallery said this week that its exhibitions programme was in place and that Conquering England had not been put forward. It's up to the curators of exhibitions to offer, according to the gallery, which has lent eight works to the NPG for the show.
Cash for Comhaltas
Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann (CCÉ) has just announced €15m in capital assets funding and the "generous endorsement" of its "plans for the revitalisation of Irish culture at community level". According to a letter from Senator Labhras Ó Murchú of CCÉ : "already, up to €15m has been pledged in capital assets by regional interests". The current issue of Treoir welcomes the news that "the Government has generously endorsed the new five-year Community Culture Development Programme" of CCÉ, and thanks the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen, and the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Eamon Ó Cuiv, for their support.
The comprehensive policy document, Towards a Policy in the Traditional Arts was published late last year by the Arts Council, which recently appointed Liz Doherty, fiddler, teacher, researcher and consultant from Buncrana, Co Donegal, to a new consulting role of traditional arts specialist. The focus in the new Arts Act and in the report has been on correcting perceived imbalances in attention and funding given to traditional arts through the established arts funding mechanisms, so it's interesting to note CCÉ seems to have secured considerable support from an entirely different source. What does this mean for the strategic plans already in place? Watch this space.
Oxford comes to Cork next Friday when three writers associated with the city of spires take part in the continuing series of readings in the Tigh Fili arts centre. Poet, academic and critic Bernard O'Donoghue returns to his native Cork for the reading, at which he will be accompanied by Oxford poets Jenny Lewis and Helen Kidd. O'Donoghue will also deliver the Boole Yeats lecture at UCC the previous day and will take part in the launch of his Cork 2005/Munster Literature Society book of translations (from ??'s writings in Czech) at Triskel Arts Centre on ??March 15th.
The First Friday readings at Tigh Fili, which are organised by poetry publishers Bradshaw Books, will continue throughout the year with participants including Moya Cannon, Mary O'Malley, Leanne O'Sullivan, Michael Coady, Joseph Woods, Dennis O'Driscoll, Gerard Smyth, Thomas McCarthy and Patrick Cotter. In association with Poetry Ireland, Tigh Fili will present poet/philosopher John Moriarty reading from his new book Night Journey in May, and John Wakeman, co-editor of the literary magazine The Shop, will give a reading from his second collection due out from Bradshaw in September.
Gerard Stembridge, Fintan O'Toole and Prof Ivana Bacik are some of the speakers in Converging Voices - Awareness of Diversity through Culture, a one-day symposium as part of St Patrick's Festival, on Wednesday, March 16th, at Dublin Castle. The discussion around culture and the arts aims to explore how cultural practice can help embrace Ireland's multicultural society.
There hasn't been a great tradition of artistic mentoring in Ireland, and yet it offers great opportunities for creative development. With an eye to encouraging mentoring, writer Michelle Read and arts consultant Valerie Bistany have set up the Mentoring Development Project (MDP). Commissioned by the Arts Council to research the process of mentoring in the arts, the MDP research focuses on professional artists in the fields of dance, theatre, music, visual arts and literature and will include a pilot programme, due to begin this spring. Interested candidates should apply before March 30th. Contact mentoringdevelopmentproject@eircom.net or The Mentoring Development Project, c/o READCO, 30-31 Wicklow Street, Dublin 2, for further information.