Galway International Arts Festival and Galway Culture Company are delighted to announce the recipients of the second and final round of their 2024 Open Call as part of GIAF’s Elevate Programme.
A total request of €150,000 in applications were received for this call, from an available fund of €30,000 which has been awarded to five collectives and companies.
One bursary of €10,000 has been awarded to the following recipients:
Dwelling from Leon Butler, Peter Power and Aisling Murray is an XR Dance performance and digital art installation in development which blends the real and the digital worlds, questioning our relationship with technology, immersing the audience in a space where what is onscreen and what is onstage is becoming helplessly intertwined. Using AI tracking to create imperceptible poetic worlds that allow the audience to pass through space, time and memory to experience the lives of others, Dwelling is an audience driven interactive experience and performance, and an ongoing body of work exploring new definitions of space, personal interactivity, and collective memory as we strive to redefine and preserve the most basic nature of human experiences of isolation, loneliness, connection, belonging and catharsis.
Four bursaries of €5,000 each have been awarded to the following recipients:
Bernard [Bernie] McDonagh, Winnie Mongan and Winnie Stokes will explore elements of Traveller culture. McDonagh, Mongan and Stokes are three trainee creative producers from a Traveller background who also work for Galway Traveller Movement. Since 2023 they have worked in partnership with the arts organisation Promenade and the Misléor Festival of Nomadic Cultures producing various events, with support from Promenade’s Arts Council funded Creative Production Support Programme. With their Elevate Bursary they will create a public facing project exploring different artforms which have strong tradition within the Traveller community including music, oral storytelling, painting and craft empowering their professional development as creative producers. Many stories from the older Traveller community which are at risk of getting lost will be recorded as part of this project.
Moonfish Theatre will run workshops in creative practices allowing the company time to work with artists from diverse backgrounds who have Irish and other non-English languages. Their ambition for these workshops is to begin exploring the creation of a multi-lingual theatre work that represents the diverse heritages present in Ireland today, foregrounding the Irish language as a pre-colonial language that connects the land and environment to all its current inhabitants. The workshops will experiment with new technologies, as well as song, music, movement and imagery.
Outset Gallery’s Atomic 2025, working with the visual artist Hazel O’Sullivan, is an ambitious, multidisciplinary arts project designed to merge art, music and education into an accessible and engaging two-week mini-series. Building on their growing reputation since opening in 2022, this project will serve as both Outset’s showcase at the Galway International Arts Festival and a transformative cultural experience for the wider Galway community. With the support of the Elevate Award, Atomic 2025 will deliver a high-quality production that integrates innovative creative practices, fosters collaboration, and provides inclusive arts education opportunities.
Fionnuala Doyle Wade, Roberta Ceginskaite, Becky Ní Éallaithe and Peadar-Tom Mercier are a collective of contemporary and traditional musicians and dancers based in Galway City and County. Title explores the textures and physicality of the coast of Galway, seeking to accentuate unique features through highly physical contemporary dance and sound. The artists will develop material and site responsive scores exploring and working onsite at various coastal locations. A short film will be created for documentation purposes. They have previously collaborated on numerous projects including Damhsa na gCoiníní.
Commenting on the bursary announcements GIAF’s Artistic Director Paul Fahy said, ‘We were delighted once again with the high standard, originality, diversity and quality of the applications for these bursaries. The Festival and Galway Culture Company are very happy to offer these five bursaries designed to support the development and research of new work or provide opportunities for the exploration of creative practices. We look forward to working with these Galway based artists in the development of their projects. A number of projects from Elevate 2024 will be included in the Festival’s 2025 Programme which will be announced in May.’
