'The world has felt heavy and dark in recent times, not least because of the long winter nights...' Writer, performance poet and community development worker Trudie Gorman is the curator of Cistin, which returns to the First Fortnight Mental Health Art & Culture Festival for its 2024 edition.
Currently working part-time with First Fortnight, she introduces Cistin below.
Cistin (the Irish word for kitchen) has been a staple event in the First Fortnight Mental Health Art & Culture Festival programme for a few years now. Each festival, First Fortnight partners with St Patrick's University Hospital and a diverse range of artists to host a vibrant and creatively nourishing event for service users of St Patrick's Hospital and members of the public alike.
Each year at our Cistin event, the aim is to cultivate a cosy and nurturing atmosphere for audience and members to experience an evening of music, poetry, storytelling and performance art. When I was asked to curate this year's event, I knew I wanted to speak to the needs of this specific moment in time. I started by considering the world we currently inhabit, and the ways in which recent events both in Ireland and globally have turned us away from one of our core needs: connection.
The world has felt heavy and dark in recent times, not least because of the long winter nights.
atmosphere for audience and members'
Many of us struggle to figure out how we are to hold this heaviness on our own, but we were never meant to. Instead, each of us deserves communities of care. In such trying times, art provides society with some vital gifts: space for expression and community, and the integral lifting of the human spirit. The legacy of Cistin is one that has continuously fostered these gifts. So, it followed that the theme of community and connection felt like it made the most sense for this year’s curation.
This year’s Cistin will be a night to celebrate Irish community in all its beautiful diversity. Our differing identities, abilities and backgrounds honoured in a melody of differing artistic forms.
The evening will feature poetry from acclaimed multidisciplinary artist, poet and Dublin Fringe Associate Artist 2023 Dafe Orgubo. Dafe explores themes of identity and heritage through a poetic journey of the personal becoming the vast and otherworldly. We will also be joined by multidisciplinary performance artist Tara Carroll, whose work explores socially engaged practice, the embodiment of illness, queer identity, accessibility and disability. And finally queer singer-songwriter Jess Marie Timlin will blend her mesmerising spell of alternative pop and indie folk with her unique vocals to explore the different types of love we experience as humans, the need for human connection and vulnerability.
In such trying times, art provides society with some vital gifts: space for expression and community, and the integral lifting of the human spirit.
It all takes place in the Lecture Hall at St Patrick's University Hospital, Dublin - members of the public can book tickets online and service users can book through the hospital. There is a social narrative available for this event on the First Fortnight website for neurodiverse audience members and anyone else who might benefit from it.
So come in from the winter cold this January 11th and join in our celebration of connection. Cistin promises to be a fierce proclamation of community in all its beautiful diversity, and the ways in which we choose over and again to come home to each other.
Cistin takes place on Thursday January 11th at St Patrick's University Hospital, Dublin - the Free (or pay what you feel/can) event commences at 7 pm - book a ticket here, and find out more about this year's First Fortnight programme here.
