Wicklow Artists Salon #4: Taking the initiative 

24th June 2023, The Courthouse Arts Centre

Guest artists:

• Moderator: Kate Strain (Curator and Founding Director of Kunstverein Aughrim)
• Eleanor Phillips (Multidisciplinary Artist, and co-founder and current director of Signal Arts Centre)
• Declan Meade (Publisher of The Stinging Fly Press)
• Garrett Keogh (Actor, Writer and Founding Director of The Gap Arts Festival)

Groundbreakers, innovators, mavericks...For our next salon, we have an exciting lineup of artists and cultural practitioners who took the bold step of establishing a new publishing house, a new festival, and two arts centres.

Why did they do that? What were the challenges? How do they sustain their projects...and themselves? And what advice do they have for others who might be thinking of...taking an initiative?

And for this event, The Wicklow Artists Salon itself will be getting in the innovatory spirit by moving from Mermaid to a new host venue: The Courthouse Arts Centre in Tinahely. For those travelling from the Bray area, we will be providing bus transport to Tinahely and back.

The Wicklow Artists Salon is an artist-run event which explores important themes affecting artists and cultural practitioners. A friendly, inclusive space, each salon consists of a moderated discussion with invited guest artists which then opens into conversations with attendees. It aims to seed learning, interactions and perhaps collaborations among participants. The programme is curated by visual artist Joanna Kidney and writer Philip St John. Crucially, it is supported by Wicklow County Arts Office, Mermaid Arts Centre and The Courthouse, Tinahely.

Find out more about our guests:

Kate Strain https://kunstverein.ie/

Eleanor Phillips https://signalartscentre.ie/ https://eleanorphillips.weebly.com/ 

Declan Meade https://stingingfly.org/

Garrett Keogh https://gapartsfestival.com