Artists and mentors gathered in Dublin city centre to mark the 10th anniversary of the 'Arts and Disability Scheme' today.
Since its launch in 2014, ‘Arts and Disability Ireland’ has granted 168 awards to 128 artists and has managed a fund of €598,000 on behalf of The Arts Council.
Padraig Naughton is the Executive Director of ‘Arts and Disability Ireland’ said "it started in 2014 with a budget of €35,000 now it has a budget of €150,00 with four strands of funding available for artists."
Amongst the panel discussions today, participants explored the on-going issues, successes and challenges facing their community.
One of the many topics discussed, a recurring theme centre on the challenge of tackling the basic steps involved in securing funding from arts organisations.
Many participants talked about the difficulties they faced trying to work their way through complex application forms, and how the vague wording was a minefield for them, so they said that sometimes they just have to give up, thus denying themselves access to potentially helpful grant aids.
With the ‘Arts and Disability scheme’, they explained, aspiring participants can ring up and get immediate answers to their questions which changed their options.
A basic service, something as simple as this kind of support can make the difference for an artist they said.
Anna Czarska, Managing Director of Sticky Tape productions, told RTÉ News that as a neuro divergent applicant "just having someone to walk you through each question is a relief."
The Connect scheme, set up in 2014 was designed to focus on professional artists who were at the ‘mid point’ of their career and the aim was to support them to be ambitious, to develop their creative careers and to connect with arts organisations and arts professionals.
Among the artists who gathered at the lively and informative 10th anniversary event at the Project Arts Centre, were people who have directly benefitted from the scheme including Alan James Burns, visual artist Ciara Chapman, and writer Philip Kenny.
Philip Kenny, a writer, spoken word poet and an autistic advocate said that he had been successfully granted funding for the ‘mentoring’ scheme and had worked closely with the author Arnold Thomas Fanning, who wrote the acclaimed memoir ‘Mind on Fire’.
Philip said that the experience of having access to Mr Fanning to discuss his writing in detail with him over a period of sessions was so practical and helpful.
He added, laughing: "I used to think that everything I wrote was a masterpiece, but as any writer will attest to, when you look back at your journals….you will be appalled by what you see, but I think I can now objectively say that I have moved on now. He gave me a lot of polish."
The funding ranges from grants including up to €15,000 for developing new work and up to €3,000 in grants for mentoring opportunities.
Artists working in areas including Film, Literature, Architecture, Music, Opera, Theatre and Visual arts are welcome to apply.
The grants are available in two funding rounds every year and the organisers hope the scheme will grow and expand in to the future.
