Posts Tagged ‘Children’

‘Where are we now?’ – A symposium examining arts for children in hospital within the context of the Puppet Portal Project

Posted on: September 29th, 2011 by emmaeager No Comments

Date: Friday, October 28th
Time: 10.45am-4:30pm
Venue: The Ark, A Cultural Centre for Children, 11a Eustace St, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 (map)
Booking: http://puppetfest.ticketsolve.com/shows/126519215/events or phone (01) 272 4030
Tickets: €10

Hospital School Window

Helium, in collaboration with Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership, is hosting this symposium as part of the 2011 International Puppet Festival Ireland for artists and healthcare professionals who are interested in participatory arts with children in hospital.

The day will include presentations from artists and healthcare workers who participated in the Puppet Portal Project, hands-on workshops, and plenary discussion on the future of participatory arts with children in hospital with contributions from a panel of healthcare professionals and arts professionals.

View the agenda for the day here

SPEAKERS and PRESENTERS

Helene Hugel, Artistic Director of Helium
Paula Hicks, Centre for Health Informatics, Trinity College Dublin
Mary O’Connor, CEO Children in Hospital Ireland
Una Jordan, Hospital Play Specialist
Sally Maidment, Artist
Siobhan Clancy, Artist

PANEL

Chair: Martin Drury, Arts Director at the Arts Council
Dr. Emma Curtis, Medical Director of the New Children’s Hospital
Dr. Veronica Lambert, Lecturer in the School of Nursing at DCU
Denis Roche, Curating Artist of the Open Window Project at St. James’s Hospital
Dr. David Vaughan, Directorate of Quality & Clinical Care at the HSE
Ray Yeates, Dublin City Council Arts Officer

For further information on the speakers and panel view here

ARTISTS

Siobhán Clancy, Anna Rosenfelder, Sally Maidment, Eszter Nemethi,
Emma Fisher, Fionnuala Conway, Niamh Lawlor, Helene Hugel

To learn more about the artists who participated in the Puppet Portal Project and who will be giving hands-on workshops at the symposium view here

The Puppet Portal Project was a national arts and technology programme with children in hospital which was produced by Helium in partnership with The Centre for Health Informatics, Trinity College, Dublin, and in collaboration with Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership. Over 2009 and 2010, the artist-in-residency project saw 7 artists working collaboratively with approximately 800 children for 30 weeks across seven hospitals using Ait Eile, the hospital webportal, to share their puppet making, stories, and films.

Puppet Portal Project Puppet Portal Project Puppet Portal Project Emma Puppet Portal Project Puppet Portal Project

A small exhibition showcasing artwork from the Puppet Portal Project will be on display during the symposium.

This symposium is brought to you as part of The 2011 International Puppet Festival Ireland. The Puppet Portal Symposium is kindly supported by the Arts Council. Helium would like to gratefully acknowledge the in-kind support of The Ark, A Cultural Centre for Children, for providing the venue for this event.

Puppet Portal Partners

Kids’ Own Publishing Partnership is a non-profit organization that has been in operation since 1997. Kids’ Own aims to provide children and young people with the opportunity to engage with professional artists and take part in high-quality arts experiences that nurture their creative spirit. Kids’ Own champions children’s creativity and believes in the creative process as an enabler and as an essential component of learning and personal development. Kids’ Own advocates for the professionalization of arts practice with children and young people. It is a pioneer in terms of developing models of best practice, in particular through its exemplary support of artists who work in this field. www.practice.ie was developed by Kids’ Own in 2008 and is the first all-Ireland online network for artists who work with children and young people. It provides a joint space for artists to come together and share their work, as well as to support them in the development of their practice.

Trinity College Dublin – The Centre for Health Informatics (CHI) at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), is a multidisciplinary research centre engaged in national and international research in the field of Health Informatics. Health Informatics is broadly defined as the application of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to healthcare. The Puppet Portal Project brought together expertise in arts and technology and built on technology developed at the Centre for Health Informatics. The CHI has played a key role in researching and developing virtual environments for children in hospital since 2001. The culmination of this work has led to two key award winning research projects exploring this use of technology: Áit Eile (eEurope Award for eHealth 2004) and Solas Irish Healthcare Awards 2008 and Astellas Changing Tomorrow Award for Innovation 2010. These virtual environments explore a variety of technologies to provide for communication, social support, relaxation, entertainment and distraction. Áit Eile is an on-line community for children in hospital which allows children to communicate with one another, their classmates, families, and teachers via e-mail, live chat or even a video link. The aim is to empower children in hospitals to combat the medical and emotional challenges they face on a daily basis, to educate them and help them to cope with the difficulties of hospitalisation. There are also games and activities, educational resources and lots more to do in the Áit Eile community.

Images and words from Mark Storor’s Workshop

Posted on: December 23rd, 2010 by Avril Carr No Comments


Let’s say you have an opportunity (o, joy!) to work with a bunch of people (children, adults, students, patients, friends, colleagues … whatever) who have the time and energy and the will to do something creative/imaginitive/artistic together, for fun and whatever else may come out of it; irrespective of what medium you plan to work in, how you plan to proceed, what you want to achieve, it seems like a good first step in the process to enable as much creativity, collaboration and flow of imagination as possible.

Thank you to workshop participant Paul O’Connor for his insightful blog entry on Mark Storor’s Workshop, which can be found here: http://bit.ly/exWRps

And further reflections on the seminar:http://bit.ly/eUjKIM

More photos can be found here and here http://bit.ly/fEoEYT and here http://bit.ly/gLF7YL. Participants traveled from Donegal and Cork to take part. Here’s some of their reflections on the day:

“I am totally inspired. So much of this is going to be relevant with groups I work with.”

“Really thinking about how my own practice relates to participatory arts.”

“Brilliant. so delighted I came.”

“Thanks for today. It was wonderful.”

“It really flowed.”

“You can get carried up in it.”

“We can enjoy others to lift and carry us.”

“We can do things that make us feel awkward.”

“It takes time to be in yourself… and try.”

And comments from those who watched the seminar online:
“I just wanted to say congrats on the conference yesterday.
I watched the conference from home and really enjoyed it and thought Mark did a great job without Anna. I was especially touched by the story of Opi which was beautiful.”

“Thank you Mark for bringing your work to Ireland. Enjoyed the presentation from my sofa in Sligo.”

Thank you to the Arts Council for funding the two events via a Travel and Training Inbound Award, Tallaght Community Arts and the Science Gallery for support, and Jurys Inn Dublin for sponsorship.

New Puppet Portal Team announced!!

Posted on: August 23rd, 2010 by Avril Carr No Comments

Helium is delighted to welcome three new artists to the Puppet Portal team for 2010. They are Sally Maidement who will be based in Donegal, David Kavanagh in Cork and Niamh Lawlor in Dublin. The three new artists will be joining Emma Fisher in Limerick and Siobhán Clancy in Dublin for the project which will start in September this year. The project is a collaboration between artists, children and healthcare staff in five paediatric wards across the country. Through the use of Solas webportal which was developed by the Centre for Health informatics, Trinity College, Dublin, artists and children in each of the hospitals will be able to share their work and work collaboratively. The project will run for 10 weeks and includes professional development days and creative exchange days where artists, healthcare staff and hospital teachers come together to share skills and knowledge. There was a huge amount of interest from artists for this year’s Puppet Portal Project and we’d really like to thank everyone who applied and came for interview.

Call for Artists – Helium’s Puppet Portal Project

Posted on: July 5th, 2010 by Avril Carr No Comments

Helium invites applications from multi-disciplinary artists working in the Dublin, Letterkenny, and Cork areas to collaborate with children across 5 participating hospitals in the next phase of this arts and health and technology project. Contemporary puppetry techniques, storytelling and technology will be explored to create live, interactive, puppetry performances via the hospital web portal, Solas, an online community for children and young people in hospital. Deadline for applications: Friday, August 6th at 5pm. Download the full artist’s brief below or contact Avril Carr on info@helium.ie with ‘Puppet Portal Project’ in the subject heading.

Puppet Portal Project – Artists’ Brief

Helium at the Cairde Festival

Posted on: July 5th, 2010 by Avril Carr No Comments

The Cairde Festival is in full swing in Sligo this week and Helium is delighted to be involved. On Friday we were involved in a celebration of Arts + Health in Sligo which took place in Joyn on Charles Street. The contributing organisations are exploring the idea of an Arts + Health Network and the Cairde festival gave the groups an opportunity to platform all of the great work that is going on. Helium displayed some of the work from the Puppet Portal Project and also showed the new Infant Imaginings video which can be seen on the homepage. Also exhibiting were the Arts Initiative in Mental Health, Sligo Youth Theatre, Joyn and Sligo Arts Service. Work by service users of Irish Wheelchair Association, National Learning Network, Mental Health Services and disability services was displayed and can be seen all this week in Joyn. The event was launched by Brid MacConville artist and former OT Manager with Mental Health Services. Brid was involved in developing the Arts + Health strategy for Sligo some years ago.

On Saturday Helium performed along with Monkeyshine Theatre and Papilio Theatre in the Storytelling tent in the People’s Park. Despite gale force winds, the tent stayed up and all of the shows were very well attended. Helium performed Infant Imaginings for 0-3 year olds with musician Sean Callagy and special guests Kareen Pennefather and Anna Rosenfelder. The show was very well received and it was interesting to see this show performed for a larger group as it is usually a one-to-one performance. Photos of this event can be seen below.