Dr. Ailbhe Murphy:

On behalf of Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, I thank the joint committee for this invitation to speak to it. Create's mission is to lead the development of collaborative arts practice, enabling artists and communities to make exceptional art together. We support collaborative artists working across all art forms and context areas, including cultural diversity and arts and disability.

Collaborative arts practice involves artists and communities working closely together, often over extended periods of time, to make art. It harnesses the experiences and skills of each person taking part to give meaning and creative expression to what is important in his or her life. By facilitating wider participation, collaborative art expands and diversifies public engagement with the arts, enriching its contribution to society. Our work is about realising greater inclusivity and diversity in the arts. We believe that by working together, artists and communities can purposefully explore how collaborative arts engage in distinct, relevant and powerful ways with the urgent social, cultural and political issues of the times.

The artist in the community scheme, which Create has managed for the Arts Council since its inception in 2002, has seen close to 200 applications from artists to work with communities which identified as having a disability. Of these, 50 major projects have been supported. In consultation with Arts & Disability Ireland, we have done much work to create greater accessibility in the application process. The 2019 Arts in the Community, AIC, bursary award in collaborative arts and theatre was awarded to a non-disabled artist who, for the past decade, has collaborated closely to create a platform for people with intellectual disabilities to make ambitious art.

Our strategy, Connect Create Change: Leading Collaborative Arts in Ireland 2020-2025, recognises that to be truly inclusive means taking an intersectional approach to diversity which acknowledges how multiple forms of discrimination, such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and class, can combine and overlap in the experiences of individuals and minority groups. For example, how do we best support a migrant Roma artist living in direct provision who self-identifies as having a disability? Such an artist clearly faces multiple interconnected barriers and requires a multifaceted, often multi-agency, support approach. We regularly consult our esteemed colleagues in ADI, working closely with organisations such as the Irish Refugee Council and the Migrant Rights Centre, to best respond to and facilitate such an artist to take up an opportunity.

We echo ADI’s experience of the difficulty disabled and vulnerable artists have in availing of grants for fear they might jeopardise benefits or draw unwanted attention to their situation, meaning, of course, that their artistic selves fade in the face of such barriers. Our job is to rekindle that creative drive by means of support and to make the arts accessible, not only for the public but for those artists who face many visible and invisible barriers to being their true creative selves.