The Strategic Projects Award supports Signal Arts Centre to support artists and develop new partnerships and professional arts and health practice in Wicklow. Waterford Healing Arts Trust (WHAT) is Ireland’s leading arts and health programme, based at University Hospital Waterford (UHW). WHAT brings arts experiences to the bedside of patients at UHW and other healthcare settings, and people living in the community. WHAT is part of Réalta, the National Body for Arts + Health in Ireland.
WHAT will partner and work with Signal Arts Centre to develop Art at the Kitchen Table, an arts and health project that currently runs in Waterford. Art at the Kitchen Table is a programme which supports older people or people confined to their living space to make art in their own homes. SIgnal aims to support and guide participants towards developing their own style and confidence to to make art independently and encourage programme participants back into the community by means of creative participation in our facilitated studio in Signal Arts Centre.
Signal Arts Centre will develop partnerships with local health professionals in Co.Wicklow to identify participants for this project and future projects. Three Signal Artists will be supported with knowledge, skills and expertise through training, mentorship and evaluation in collaboration with Réalta, WHAT and Artist and Signal Board member Emma Finucane. Training and mentoring will take place in WHAT with Maeve Butler, Assistant Director and Caroline Schofield the AKT Programme Artist in Waterford. Critical Reflection and evaluation support will take place in the Signal Arts Centre with Emma Finucane.
Throughout this training and pilot project delivery Signal’s Artistic Director Eleanor Philips will coordinate and support the programme artists in keeping with professional guidelines supported and delivered by Réalta and Artist Emma Finucane.
Funded by Wicklow County Arts Office Strategic Project Awards 2024 supported by the Arts Council.
About Signal Arts Centre
Signal Arts Centre is an independent not-for-profit artist-led gallery and work-space. Signal is a working artist centre whose purpose is to provide opportunities for artists to create & sell their work, meet other artists & share their skills with the wider community. Our values are: fostering creativity; inclusivity; and approachability. We see artists having a role in the community.and communities as places where extraordinary artists can emerge from provided there is a place for them to flourish. We strive to be that place. This project will allow artists to have a role in contributing to the social wellbeing of our county.
The Gallery hosts 24 exhibitions a year and individual artists and creatives use the Centre to run their own classes and workshops. We host musician jam sessions, poetry and writing evenings, film nights and performance art events. Through our CE Project, over 17 artists and art workers work in the building facilitating workshops, invigilating exhibitions, providing administrative support, working on projects around North Wicklow and ensuring that the centre is safe, inclusive, and welcoming. The studio is also accessed by four emerging/professional artists a year, and supports offered to member and non-member artists include individual advice on grant writing, cv development and mentoring.
In its 32 years of existence, the centre has facilitated over 600 emerging and practising artists.
Find out more HERE