Festival of Creativity
Waterford Festival of Creativity taking place in Garter Lane Arts Centre on October 11th.
Waterford’s first Festival of Creativity takes place on October 11th 2019 in Waterford Cultural Quarter. CreateFest celebrates and examines creativity and its role in community, in industry and in education. Garter Lane Arts Centre is the home of the main programme with a line up of national and local speakers including keynote speaker Toby Scott, leader in creative industries and a presentation from Eilís Lavelle of Callan Workhouse Union about “Bring Your Own Chair”, a portrait of 12 rural towns in the South-East region led by visual artist Michelle Browne.
A panel discussion led by Irish Times journalist Jennifer O’Connell including guests Sandra and David Whelan of Immersive VR Education and Máire Henry, Head of Architecture at Waterford Institute of Technology will consider creativity in the context of identity and place. Dr Eamonn Kelly will present the Creative Ireland programme and will update festival attendees on the projects, local and national.
The afternoon sessions look at some examples of best practice in creativity in Waterford, including in digital media and education with Immersive VR Education, Murals for Communities with The Walls Project and at creativity in music and the arts with Mark Graham of King Kong Company.
Running side-by-side, an afternoon of activities celebrating community creativity takes place from 3.15 p.m. in Garter Lane Arts Centre and all are welcome. This free event includes graffiti arts with Waterford Walls, building creative communities with Jenni O’Neill and closed door tours of the newly restored Waterford Municipal Art collection in the recently renovated Art Gallery in 31/32 O’Connell Street.
“In this drop-in workshop about Creative Communities I would like to invite young people to create a miniature paper village by constructing a collection of small paper buildings they would like to see in their own neighbourhoods by using simple paper cutting & folding techniques” said Jennie O’Neill.
Katherine Collins, Waterford Cultural Quarter Project Manager said “This is the first year of CreateFest and we want to look at various aspects of creativity including best practice in creative industry, collaborative community activities, an education programme as well as networking opportunities for creative industry professionals. We plan to grow and develop this into a bigger festival over time, and examine how creative thinking can help solve challenges and promote new ways of doing things”
Tickets for the event are on sale at www.waterfordculturalquarter.ie/createfest; €8 per ticket. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @waterfordculturalquarter for up to date news and announcements.
