Ignite!

Ignite!: Mayo County Council

Ignite! was established at the end of 2012, following on from the Arts & Disability Network, a capacity-building programme initiated by The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon in 2008 and piloted with Mayo County Council Arts Office and Arts and Disability Ireland (ADI) in 2009/2010.

Ignite! is a platform designed to generate Ireland’s most ambitious showcasing of talent from people with disabilities, led by international and Irish artists and performers with disabilities, with projects taking place in 2014 and 2015 in Galway, Mayo and Cork. These commissions each represent an investment of up to €60,000. Ignite is managed by a unique partnership involving the Arts Council, Arts & Disability Ireland (ADI), Cork City Council, Galway City and County Councils and Mayo County Council.

The Ignite programme offered a new and innovative approach to commissioning and touring work by artists with disabilities. In addition it offered exceptional opportunities for local arts organisations and disability organisations to work with internationally recognised artists with disabilities to create new, ambitious artworks. This programme also aimed to broaden the audience for this kind of work and to provide more diverse work for local audiences.

The three commissions are collaborations between a local venue/organisation, an international disabled artist and local groups of people with disabilities:

Mayo: Ballina Arts Centre

Aideen Barry working with Scannán Technologies, Western Care’s Ridgepool Training Centre and Choreographer Emma O’Kane. Together they produced ‘Silent Moves’, a film created using new cutting-edge technologies, including ‘green screen’ and advanced animation techniques, bringing together stylized mime, music and movement, inspired by the silent movies of the 1930s: the films of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin which was placed first in the 2016 Irish Times Modern Ireland Artworks by public vote.

Galway: The Town Hall Theatre

Jez Colborne (of Mind the Gap) working with That’s Life Galway produced the unique ‘Trickster’ – a music performance piece that took the form of a powerful, live theatre soundscape, inviting full audience participation in October 2015.

Cork: National Sculpture Factory

Simon McKeown with Suisha Inclusive Arts at Cope Foundation and Sound Out and other disability organisations in Cork delivered a live art event showcasing a dazzling mix of technologies. The delivery of a large-scale collaborative public art commission culminated in a major live art event during Cork’s Culture Night 2015. The artist and his collaborators explored ‘representation of difference’ in relation to public space through an ambitious mix of performance, participation and projection.