23 June 2023
Be Part Sharing
Suisha Arts with Jody O’Neill & Al Bellamy
Visual artist Marie Brett worked with Cork Midsummer Festival on a commissioned creative enquiry Cultural Lore, that looked at the idea that knowledge can be lost from our collective consciousness as technological advances replace more traditional manual methods.
The project creatively explored fresh approaches to arts engagement with older people and to advance best practice models. Cultural Lore took the form of a creative enquiry artist residency into how older people might relate to and engage with the arts, particularly in a festival context.
Brett’s Cultural Lore explores what local knowledge and folk custom can offer us towards (re)gaining a healthier mind, body, land and home, especially as we age. Her artist residency explored and activated creative engagement with Cork older people to reveal and enliven such cultural lore knowledge and reposition its contemporary meaning as a vibrant and critical necessity – creatively mobilizing what a new tomorrow can look like. Collectively the artist and numerous community members sought to gather and creatively reimagine rites, ritual, belief and customs of:
THE LAND : nature, animals, spirits, weather and the almanac
THE HOME : cooking, tools and pests
THE BODY : medicine, cures, prevention and love
THE MIND : supernatural, magic, telepathy and mediumship
Find out more about the project at www.mariebrett.ie.
Creative Enquiry– Arts and Older People was a strategic partnership between Cork City and County Council arts offices, the HSE, Age & Opportunity, Cork Midsummer Festival, MusicAlive and Sirius Arts Centre, with the support of the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon Invitation to Collaboration scheme. The project explored new approaches to arts engagement with older people in 2019. The project consisted of three residencies including Cultural Lore by Marie Brett with Cork Midsummer Festival.
