Creative Communities Roadshow 2024 - Blarney

Cork City Council Arts Office will host a series of five in-person and one online creative, community-focused networking events in October 2024 as part of the Creative Communities Roadshow. The events will take place in different parts of the city throughout the month and are open to everyone interested in creativity, community engagement, and the arts. Whether you’re an artist, a community worker or just curious, you’re welcome to join us for one or both parts of any or all of these events.

The first part of each will be a chance to connect with others, share information and get some funding advice. We’ll kick off with small group discussions to get to know each other and explore the values and ideas that inspire your creativity, whether you're involved in projects already or just interested in finding out how to bring more creativity to your community. Practical tools and resources for creative projects and social practice will be shared.

The second part will offer creative tasters where participants can discuss and explore themes together such as access, equity, inclusion and diversity while trying your hand at fun, easy and enjoyable arts activities to share with others. The creative tasters will facilitate basic skills that support creative and artistic group work. They will involve re-usable, natural or recycled materials and are accessible for all ages and abilities. No prior experience is needed to participate.

All materials and some refreshments will be provided. Please bring a keep cup with you.

_______________

This is the fourth of 6 events in total and will be held at Blarney Community Centre.

Session 2 of the Blarney event will be a creative taster in Zines Making, facilitated by Print Van Go. Zines are DIY mini magazines using basic print materials. From photocopied images, stamps or ordinary pens, they are quick and fun to make. Using a minimum of text, zines allow you to share ideas, stories, images and more in a simple and appealing way.

About the facilitators:

Aoife Barrett is an artist and printmaker with a broad social practice, embedded within the building and practising of Print Van Go (PVG), travelling print studio. From rural communities in Tipperary (Local Link Tipp & Clonoulty Tidy Villages 2020-’24) to hospital beds in Galway (Saolta Arts 2018-’20) & youth centres in Dublin (Core Youth Service (YS) & Clondalkin YS, 2020-‘21), PVG is a laboratory for creative experiments; making space for the voices of others by co-creating artworks inspired by stories and experiences. Recent residencies - ‘Found Links’ with Local Link Tipperary rural bus (Creative Irl, 2021); ‘The People’s Garden’ with Clonoulty Tidy Villages, (Creative Irl, 2022/23), ‘The Limerick Road Show’ with communities across Limerick (BoI, 2023) - combine audio, placemaking, print and performance to create opportunities for dialogue and collaboration while ‘The One Stop Shop Print Club’ (Creative Places Tuam, 2023) focused on making space for town residents to come together to engage with Tuam's print history & Tuam Herald's letterpress archive.

Kate O’ Shea works across printmaking, archiving, large-scale installation, performance, and publishing. She accompanies Aoife Barrett on many Print Van Go adventures across the country. Kate is co-founder of the collective, Broken Fields, bringing together experience, knowledge, and practice from the fields of socially engaged art, architecture, community work, social movement archiving, activism, research, and writing. Kate co-creates the newspaper Gravity Express with Dr. Ciaran Smyth (Vagabond Reviews). Kate is co-founder with Victoria Brunetta of independent publishing house Durty Books. She is co-founder of The People’s Kitchen and is a member of Red Wheelbarrow Productions.

Please note: Session 1 will have much of the same content at each event, but with an opportunity to connect with different people in the different locations. The Creative Taster (Session 2) will differ at each of the 6 Roadshow events.

For dates, venues and more information on the other events in the series, see below!

Togher Community Centre - 8th October, 2pm-5pm Graphic Harvesting creative taster with Helen O'Keeffe

Riverstown Community Centre - 12th October, 2pm-5pm Weaving Nature creative taster, facilitator TBC

The Carraig Centre, Ballincollig - 14th October, 10am- 1pm Storytelling creative taster with Paddy Doyle

Mahon Community Centre - 18th October, 12:30pm- 3pm Balancing Acts creative taster with Kate Mitchell

Online - 21st October, 6pm- 9pm Graphic Harvesting creative taster with Hazel Hurley

For more details and booking link for all events visit

Host or Publisher Cork City Arts Office