BE PART

Be Part! Creative Europe Project (2020 – 2023) Art BEyond PARTicipation. Towards a better understanding of the entanglements between power, politics, place and publics in arts practice.

BE PART - BEyond PARTticipation, a Creative Europe co-funded project, runs from 2019 to 2023 and is an audience and organisational development project in the field of participatory art practices implemented by ten European and non-European partners. Implemented by 10 EU and non-EU partners, BE PART is a practical and critical exploration of collaborative art-making and sharing. BE PART sets out to create a European network of co-creators, supported by artists and organisations to collectively foster new approaches and structures for the co-creation and mobility of artworks.

A pool of new participatory artworks will be created by Irish and international artists to manifest in Cork Midsummer Festival from 2020 until 2023, some large (e.g. installations, exhibitions, performances) some small (a series of discussions and workshops etc).

As part of Midsummer Moments in 2020, visual artist Marie Brett presented online artwork Day of the Straws in collaboration with writer Katie Holly and made in dialogue with community historians, healers, fortune tellers and other interested people. Her new project will premiere as part of Cork Midsummer Festival 2021 under the BE PART programme.

In addition, Cork Midsummer Festival and Springboard, a community based family project that strives to ensure positive outcomes for children, are collaborating from February until July 2021 deliver an Artist in Residency and Creative Enquiry with young Traveller children and their families, exploring the relationship between cultural identity and cultural engagement. Mother and daughter visual artists Julie and Annie Forrester will lead a series of engagements with traveller families, exploring relationships and connections with local environs and with Cork Midsummer Festival's cultural programmes. Award-winning visual artist, teacher and Traveller woman Leanne McDonagh joins the project as guest artist and adviser.

Santarcangelo Festival (Italy – lead), Artsadmin (UK), L’Art Rue (Tunis), Association Festival de Marseille (France), City of Women (Slovenia), Cork Midsummer Festival (Ireland), Kansallisgalleria (Finland), National Theatre Institute of Latvia/ International Festival of Contemporary Theatre Homo (Latvia), Scottish Sculpture Workshop (UK), Vooruit (Belgium).

Image: Marie Brett. Teenage Girl Wearing a Face Covering (Irish Lockdown), Undisclosed Location, County Cork, (photograph). Day of The Straws, 2020. Photograph: Marie Brett. Courtesy the artist