Sir, - As an artist I have undertaken six residencies at The Ark working with over 4,000 children during that time. I have been working in the field of education in the arts for nearly 20 years in several countries and I have never encountered anything quite like The Ark.
The quality of the experience for each child attending workshops is second to none. An extraordinary level of planning and research for every programme tries to ensure that there is a balance of education and fun and that there is certainly space for children to act on impulse.
There is a large element of performance about running a good visual arts workshop. The best sessions are a carefully thought out and intricately planned delivery of magic. They combine a range of experiences and are designed to develop different skills from their participants. Most of my workshops have been centred on collaborative working with a group of children actively focussed on the same activity. Listening, observing and commenting may all form part of a visual arts workshop which for the children is simply great fun.
The Ark is special, but it cannot do everything. It's wonderful that other organisations provide spontaneous arts experiences for children, but the brief of The Ark can be different.
Drop-in sessions are simply a different experience for children and they have different expectations of that experience. You wouldn't have children dropping in and out of a stage play in a theatre.
Children meeting living, working artists is central to the work of The Ark. Simply for practical purposes this need to be programmed into workshops rather than having artists available all the time to allow for children dropping-in. That said, however, there are occasionally drop-in sessions at The Ark and in past years during the public summer seasons at The Ark I have worked with many visitors to Dublin who make bookings on the day.
One real criticism of The Ark is that it has only been able to provide for children in Dublin. This is changing now and I would argue that money is much better spent on providing resources to create opportunities for children across the Ireland than on making a permanent exhibition in it's Dublin building.
As creative director of an major outreach programme of The Ark I want to see children across the State, and indeed across the world, experiencing the kind of programming The Ark has become renowned for. We are working with children with traditional and new technologies in a range of workshops encouraging creativity and artistic spontaneity to contribute to an exciting new venture which will be launched later in the year. - Yours,
Simon Spain, Creative Director, Kids' Own Publishing Partnership, Kingsfort House, Ballintogher, Co Sligo.