About the Project
Introduction
Blackwater Regional Partnership commissioned me to deliver a Peace III Cross Border programme and public art piece that aimed to bring communities from the areas of Dungannon & South Tyrone Borough and County Monaghan together concentrating on rural areas along the border.
Since the aim of the overall Peace III Cross Border project is to bring people from both sides of the border together through leisure, recreation and arts activities, I delivered this project with a cross-border, cross-community collaboration between me who lives north of the border and another experienced professional artist who lives and works south of the border.
Scope Of Work/Service Proposed
We delivered a creative arts programme and public art piece working with a group of people with disabilities from Dungannon & South Tyrone Borough Council area and County Monaghan for the Blackwater Regional Partnership.
The community arts workshops were based around the theme of what makes us feel ‘at home’ and conversely ‘not at home’. We explored the border-line between these feelings. We used reminiscence activities and objects from our childhood homes to stimulate memory and creative thinking. We worked creatively around the idea that, as adults, somewhere that feels like home evokes familiar memories from our childhoods. We don’t make those same connections with places that do not feel like home.
We brought participants from both groups together to further explore these ideas through the process of art making. Many of the memories evoked were familiar to participants across both groups and this will further stimulated sharing of ideas and creative activity.
At the end of the programme of workshops, participants had created ceramic tiles that depict ideas of ‘at home’, ‘not at home’ and ‘the border between’.
We found that ideas of home were are not constrained by geographical borders, physical abilities, religious differences, or anything else that separates able-bodied people from disabled people both north and south of the border. The ceramic tiles were then assembled to create a public art piece on the border between Monaghan and Tyrone,
The project was delivered in five phases and launched in April ’11.
- Phase 1 (December 2010) involved the consultation, project design and planning with stakeholder groups.
- Phase 2 (January and February 2011) rolled out the community arts workshop programme.
- Phase 3 (First two weeks of March 2011) created a DVD documenting the workshop program for viewing at the launch.
- Phae 4 (Last two weeks of March 2011) fabricated & installed the final artwork on site.
- Phase 4 (First two weeks of April 2011) launched the artwork, evaluated the project and publicised the work.
The project incorporated the following themes throughout the workshop programme and consequently in the public art piece that emerged.
- Addressing poverty to build integration and inclusion of vulnerable groups
- Cross Border links
- Equality and Equity
- Sustainable development
- Partnership Working
Project Delivery
Both Mayors of Monaghan County and Dungannon & South Tyrone Borough Council launched the work in April 2011. A short film documenting the process was shown at the launch event/.
