WOMEX World Music Expo, one of the most important international professional markets for world music of every kind including folk, roots, ethnic and traditional music, will take place in Lisbon, Portugal from 19th-23rd October 2022. The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is now welcoming applications from artists in Northern Ireland for bursaries to attend. Three bursaries of up to £650 each are available to artists based here and online applications are open from Friday 1 July and will close at 12noon on Thursday 28 July 2022. 

We continue to provide a business-as-usual response. All staff can be contacted by email or phone during normal office hours. Please refer to the staff contact list, linked below.

Office hours:
Monday-Thursday, 9am-5.30pm;
Friday, 9am-5pm.

If you are unsure who to contact with your enquiry, please email info@artscouncil-ni.org and your email will be redirected to the appropriate member of staff.

The Arts Council's Creative Industries Development Officer, Matthew Malcolm, provided evidence on Wednesday 6th July 2022 to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. The aim of the session was to provide evidence on the role and impact on NI's Creative Industries of the UK Industrial Strategy's £80m 'Creative Cluster' programme, which is designed to drive innovation and skills in the UK and to create products and services that can be marketed globally. Since 2020, the Arts Council has invested almost £600,000 in the Creative Industries, with £182,068 of this investment coming from NI's Creative Cluster, which is Future Screens NI. The funding is encouraging collaboration between artists, academia and creative technologists.

The Arts Council announced on Tuesday 5th July its National Lottery Project Funding awards for 2022-23, with 66 awards totalling over £2 million to support the development of arts activities across Northern Ireland. 

Among this year's recipients, The John & Pat Hume Foundation received £50,000 to work with The Playhouse in Derry-Londonderry to create an original musical drama about the life and work of John Hume, which will premiere and be broadcast internationally on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in 2023.

Full list of National Lottery Project awards here.

Nine arts projects have been awarded funding totalling over £49,000 as part of the Arts Council's Small Grants funding programme in June. The money will be used to support arts initiatives in communities across Northern Ireland, including projects in Limavady, Belfast and Derry-Londonderry.

Supported through National Lottery funds, the Small Grants Programme is designed to encourage organisations in Northern Ireland to get more people to engage with the arts through creative, community-based projects. Grants are awarded by the Arts Council on a monthly basis and organisations can apply for up to £10,000.

The Arts Council has rounded up fantastic arts and culture events to enjoy, supported by the Department for Communities and National Lottery funding.

New highlights include:

The Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry-Londonderry, presents its summer exhibition, 'Ballads of Rhinestones & Newcomers', with Bojana Janković and a collaboration between Tom O'Dea and Frank Sweeney, from 20th July to 24th September.

Craft NI presents 'Wool Works', an exhibition of contemporary textile design, bringing together Welsh, Finnish and Northern Irish textile artists, who have been working together since 2001. Continues at the Craft NI Gallery, Royal Avenue, Belfast, until  5th August.

A group of girls at St Cecilia's College in Derry-Londonderry have created a series of inspirational podcasts, addressing mental health issues and the impact of the pandemic. Working with professional artists from Bounce Culture, students have written scripts, conducted interviews, learned technical skills and even created their own music soundtracks for the project which has involved 24, year 8 girls.

The school was one of eleven to receive funding through the Creative Schools Partnership in September 2021, designed to encourage schools to embrace the benefits of the arts by injecting more creativity into the classroom and improving educational outcomes for students. 

Watch the short video here.

QEST is delighted to announce that the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust will be accepting new applications for funding between 11th July and 15th August 2021. Talented and aspiring makers and craftspeople can apply for up to £18,000 to further their education through traditional college courses, vocational training, apprenticeships or one-to-one training with master craftsmen.

Deadline for applications is 5pm, 15th August. 

Source, the quarterly photography magazine published in Belfast, is looking for new writers to contribute. If you've not written for Source before, you are invited you to submit an article. The winning entry will receive £500 /€570 and Source will either publish it or commission you to write an article for them in the future. All shortlisted entries will also be considered for publication or for future commissions (paid).

Deadline for submissions is 1st August 2022.

Joy Gerrard lives and works in Belfast. She graduated with a BA from NCAD, Dublin and an MA and MPhil from the Royal College of Art, London. Joy is known for work that investigates different systems of relations between crowds, architecture and the built environment. Using Japanese ink on paper and canvas, she makes detailed ink works which re-create recent political protests from around the world.

Vigil/Protest (London/2021. Memorial for Sarah Everard. Scotland Yard. Version 1) is part of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland Collection. This painting is part of a larger series of work made by the artist in 2021 that focused on women's rights and safety.

Congratulations to Belfast poet, Michael Longley CBE, who has been awarded the Feltrinelli International Prize for Poetry by Italy's Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. The Accademia said Michael Longley, a previous recipient of the TS Eliot Prize and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, had won for "the extraordinary relevance of his themes and their cultural implications, as well as the very high stylistic quality of his oeuvre". He will accept the award at a ceremony in November.