Northern Ireland’s disabled and deaf artists are being offered grants of up to £5,000 to develop their work.
The iDA (individual disabled/deaf artists) awards scheme is for original proposals for bold and challenging work by musicians, writers, visual artists, theatre and dance practitioners.
The scheme, which is run by the Arts and Disability Forum with funding from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, has helped the careers of many artists who have gone on to achieve international recognition.
Chris Ledger, Chief Executive of the Arts and Disability Forum, said that the purpose of iDA was to provide a flexible process supporting disabled and deaf artists to produce exciting new work and gain new experiences.
She added: “The grant scheme is open to proposals from artists with all types of impairment or disability. This is a developmental scheme so we welcome applications from emerging talent as well as from more established artists but decisions are made on artistic merit, talent and ambition.
“iDA grant recipients have gone on to all kinds of big opportunities. Shannon Yee’s award-winning immersive theatre piece, ‘Reassembled … slightly askew’ was seed-funded via the iDA grant scheme and has been touring in the UK and overseas pretty much continuously since completion, with the most recent activity being an extensive tour in Canada.
“Along with performance artist, Sinéad O’Donnell, who is also a previous iDA grant recipient, Shannon was selected this year by the Arts Council for a Major Individual Artist award. Two out of four of these prestigious awards went to disabled recipients who have progressed via iDA grants with support from the Arts & Disability Forum.”
The Arts & Disability Forum is looking to grow this highly successful area of work and this year a partnership residency with Digital Arts Studios in Belfast will be available. The company would love to hear from companies of any kind that might be interested in forming future partnerships with the ADF. The support could be ‘in kind’ advice or services – anything at all that could help a disabled/deaf artist progress in their artistic career.
Fionnuala Walsh, Head of Participatory Arts, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, said: “The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is delighted to support this important artist development programme through National Lottery funding. The Individual Disabled Artist Award encourages the creation of new work and enables disabled and deaf artists to have on-going training and skills development within the sector.”
The application process opened on Thursday 22 February, and the deadline for applications is 12 noon on Thurs 12 April 2018. Projects can begin in June 2018 at the earliest and are expected to be completed by May 2019.
Artists can download the criteria and guidelines from the iDA micro-site – https://idaaward.wordpress.com/
For more information follow ADF on social media:
Facebook (www.facebook.com/artsdisabilityforum)
Twitter (adf011).
