ARTIST IN THE COMMUNITY

The map charts the increasing effectiveness of this Scheme in placing professional artists of the highest order in unfamiliar local community environments. A total of 83 of the 152 awards – that’s more than half – went to community-originated, ground-up projects in areas identified by the Robson Index as the five Most Deprived in Northern Ireland.The nature of the award is such that applicants are encouraged to develop local partnerships (with their Council, or with businesses, or other sponsors), and to choose the artists they wish to work with, in order to gain the maximum advantage from every pound of Arts Council public funding.As I have already said, the real miracles of the arts take place in Greysteel and Darkley for £2,000 apiece as surely as they do in the Waterfront Hall or the Guildhall for £100,000.

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I want to leave you with this image: of the Arts Council responding to and developing the arts and with them initiative, ingenuity and community commitment in quiet ways right across the country.