Cavan County Council in partnership with Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre will facilitate the artist Amanda Jane Graham to spend four weeks working at West Cork Arts Centre concentrating on her work in the area of art and illness during August/September 2016. This is the first time Cavan has offered this residency opportunity for an artist to spend time at West Cork Arts Centre. The award provides financial support for an artist to reside in Skibbereen and have full access to Uillinn studios along with a learning opportunity on the Arts for Health Partnership Programme.

Amanda Jane Graham is an artist who has centred her practice on work that is autobiographical in nature. She has used personal experience and memory of people and moments to create sensitive, insightful and mindful art works.   Her recent work “The Pram That Helped the Rising” was based on a personal family story and she collaborated with the musician Martin Donohoe to develop this into a multi media storytelling event.   Amanda speaking about the work that she will undertake while resident at West Cork Arts Centre says “My work in this area challenges the societal stigma that surrounds illness. Through my work the human rights of the individual with diagnosis, not to be defined by their illness is brought into focus. This is achieved by giving a clear sighted view into the world of the sick, by addressing perceptions of conflicting cultural projections played out through society. I hope my work will go some way to enable and warrant people to cast away the traditional thinking around illness and create a new insight, sensitivity and inclusivity to serious and terminal illness.”  

Amanda will present a public conversation as part of Culture Night at Uillinnn on the contemporary issue of serious illness. This event will bring together people from all walks of life where the right of the individual, not to be defined by their illness is focused on with the ultimate aim, to fracture the fears and taboos that surround sickness. The artist will create a platform that addresses, communicates and discusses the cultural pessimism, societal responsibility and individual apprehension that illness and treatment evokes.

West Cork Arts Centre manages the Arts for Health Partnership Programme which integrates arts into a culture of care and is based on equal partners working together. This residency supports the selected artist to develop her work in arts and health collaborative settings.   Cavan County Council acknowledges the ongoing support of the Arts Council to develop its service.

Further details on the work of West Cork Arts Centre at:  facebook.com/uillinnwestcorkartscentre

www.westcorkartscentre.com

Image by Amanda Jane Grahan Title:   I have not long for this world by I am not dead yet, Aquatint