Cloudlands: Helium’s new hospital-based Artist in Residence programme for teenagers with chronic illnesses

Earlier this month, Helium held a consultation session with teenagers in Cork as part of the development of a new artist in residence project for teenagers with chronic illnesses which will be commencing later this year. The consultation session was led by artists Siobhán Clancy and Fionnuala Conway.

Helium’s Cloudlands project will be taking place in three hospitals around the country. It will fuse art and technology and gives participants the chance to connect with professional artists as well as with their peers across the three hospitals through the use of online resources as well as individual and group workshops which will take place in each hospital.

The Cork consultation session aimed to find out more about the types of online resources teenagers currently use and what sort of tools they would find useful in developing collaborative work with others around the country and to enhance the work that they undertake with the visiting artist. Consultation sessions are also taking place with staff of each hospital to make sure that the project meets their needs and to identify teenagers who would benefit most from participation.

Mark Storor (UK) will be working with Helium on Cloudlands as artists’ mentor. Mark will run a two day workshop for the selected artists prior to the project’s commencement The workshop will draw on participants’ own stories and model aspects of the practice, which can be applied in many different contexts. Mark will also run development days throughout the project and provide ongoing support to the artists as they develop their work in the hospitals. You can see more information on Mark’s work here, here, and here.

ARTIST OPPORTUNITY

The project will start in November 2012 and Helium is currently seeking expressions of interest from multidisciplinary artists in Dublin, Cork and Galway. If you are interested in finding out more about this opportunity, email your details – name, artform(s), email address and phone number – to info@old.helium.ie. You will receive a full brief and details of the application process in the coming weeks.