In 2022 Pavee Point commenced a partnership with the Arts Council – Ireland’s development agency for the arts.
The purpose of the partnership is to:
Develop a shared vision and programme of work that increases Traveller inclusion, visibility and participation in the arts in Ireland and supports and promotes the cultural contribution of Travellers and Traveller organisations in Irish society.
Aims
Through the development of a shared vision and programme of work we aim to:
create conditions that support members of the Traveller community, in all their diversity, to engage in the arts as professional artists and as other arts workers, project participants / co-creators, audience members and volunteers
build on previous and current arts activity by Traveller organisations and support the future development of ambitious artistic practice
promote mainstreaming and inclusion of Traveller arts and culture in cultural institutions, including the development of targeted measures
Our Work
The work of this programme consists of:
Exploring mechanisms to ensure that Traveller / Traveller Organisations participation and leadership is key to processes for arts and cultural exchange, learning and training
Scoping and mapping Traveller arts and cultural practice and provision nationally to address barriers to participation and highlight where positive change needs to happen
Building linkages in terms of arts and cultural work happening with, by and for the Traveller community today, including developing a digital resource
Examining key international initiatives and good practice by Indigenous Peoples and minority ethnic groups in Europe, drawing learning from these initiatives and making recommendations for future work
Supporting and promoting current Traveller arts activity, where possible, by helping to provide expertise, contacts, structural support and information and communications
Working with arts and culture organisations and institutions to advocate for Traveller participation in mainstream and targeted initiatives and in policies
Traveller Arts and Culture Worker – Martin P. Collins – arts@pavee.ie
Arts and Culture Database
Traveller Arts & Culture Database
This database aims to document the significant body of work in the area of Traveller arts and culture, to facilitate networking and information sharing and also to inspire further work in this area.
The projects featured in this database showcase Traveller arts and culture projects since 2000. These projects were either carried out wholly by Travellers or in collaboration with Travellers.
If you know of Traveller arts and culture projects not already included please complete this template and either email to arts@pavee.ie or post to Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre, 46 Charles Street Great, Dublin D01XC63. Or you can ring us at (01) 8780255 and ask for the Arts and Culture team.
Traveller Collection – a Collaboration
‘Traveller Collection’ was a 3-part art project in 2018 that aimed to show a way of integrating Traveller culture into mainstream museums and galleries.
Art piece from Dublin City Gallery* at Pavee Point – for One Day Only
Street Singer’ by Jerome Connor from the collection of Dublin City Gallery was exhibited at Pavee Point. This was the first time an art loan was organised between the two organisations and represents the start of a process to make representations of Traveller culture within the museum more visible.
Artist Seamus Nolan presentedva number of objects, activities, recordings and documents relating to Traveller culture. Throughout the exhibition material was digitized and made available to the public on WWW.TRAVELLERCOLLECTION.IE.
Roundtable: Representation and the archive: ‘Traveller Collection’ hosted in Pavee Point
This discussion explored questions of ownership and representation of Traveller culture and heritage. It addressed the challenges of collecting Traveller culture, the necessity to create such a collection and the importance of a Traveller collection maintained by Travellers.
Presenters Seamus Nolan, artist; Rosaleen McDonagh, Pavee Point; Dr. Eve Olney, Artist and Ethnographer; Jessica O’ Donnell, Head of Education and Community Outreach, Dublin City Gallery. Chaired by Oein de Bhairduin.
Songs and light refreshments accompanied the event.
Imogen Gunner
Background
This project seeks to open a dialogue around what an appropriate approach to integrating the narrative of Traveller culture and history into the ‘national project’ might look like.
Click on image for pdf of Traveller Collection leaflet
The project is engaging in a collaborative process of enquiry with cultural practitioners, archivists and Traveller activists in an exploration of the basic notions of representations in relation to Traveller culture and heritage.
A series of workshops and meetings with Traveller and Traveller organisations were organised throughout the country to discuss the issues involved and to seek contributions and build a programme to manage the Traveller Collection.
This is a socially engaged commission with artist Séamus Nolan, Pavee Point Traveller & Roma Centre, Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, CREATE, the national development agency for collaborative arts and CAPP, collaborative arts partnership programme.