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Open Call: National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award 2024
Age & Opportunity’s Bealtaine Festival, in partnership with Nursing Homes Ireland, wish to recognise three outstanding arts projects through the National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award 2024.
National Arts in Nursing Homes Day celebrates the creativity of people in nursing homes and care settings and the integral role the arts fulfils in supporting them. National Arts in Nursing Homes Day is organised by Age & Opportunity in partnership with Nursing Homes Ireland, and invites care homes, day care settings and community hospitals around Ireland to engage artists and residents and to showcase their creative work on National Arts in Nursing Homes Day.
Each year Age & Opportunity invites nursing homes, day services and community hospitals, in partnership with a professional artist, to submit an application for an innovative event for the National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award. The selected projects are supported with a bursary and showcased in the Bealtaine printed programme.
How to get involved
Age & Opportunity invites applications from care settings who wish to facilitate their residents’ artistic and creative expression by organising interactive and engaging arts workshops, sessions and events led by professional artists. These care settings will aim to create an exciting and suitable Bealtaine project that celebrates their residents arts and creative talents, culminating in a festival event (which may be online, blended or in-person).
This will be presented as part of National Arts in Nursing Homes Day that will take place Friday 17 May during the Bealtaine Festival 2024. It presents an opportunity to bring together residents, families, care staff and artists to promote the arts in your care setting, to support residents in expressing their creative talents and to take joy from a creative arts initiative.
One award of €1,000 and two awards of €500 will be made to the three successful applicants. The deadline for applications is 5pm, February 26 2024. For guidelines and further information visit bealtaine.ie. For information or support, email arts@ageandopportunity.ie
View the National Arts in Nursing Homes Day 2023 video, or read more about last year’s events below. National Arts in Nursing Homes Day is a partnership between Age & Opportunity and Nursing Homes Ireland. Images courtesy of Age & Opportunity Ireland.
National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award 2023
The artistic and creative potential and talents of nursing home residents were celebrated in communities across Ireland on Friday, 19 May 2023. National Arts in Nursing Homes Day saw performances, exhibitions and celebratory events hosted in nursing homes as part of our annual Bealtaine Festival, celebrating the arts and creativity as we age. The day’s schedule was brimming with engaging performances and exhibitions of art, pottery, knitting and other crafts produced by the residents.
As part of this event, three nursing homes were granted the National Arts in Nursing Homes Award for creating exciting and suitable Bealtaine projects that celebrates their resident’s artistic and creative talents, culminating in a festival event. This year’s recipients are Mooncoin Residential Care Centre, Borris Lodge and Highfield Healthcare.
In Co. Kilkenny, residents of Mooncoin Residential Care Centre presented the fruits of their participation in an arts project “If These Hands Could Sing”. For successive weeks they had explored the theme of reminiscence through the five senses, with the support of artist musician Liam Merriman.
Borris Lodge, in Co. Carlow, hosted an event as part of “The Borris Lace Exchange”, led by artist Jules Michael and collaborating with the Borris Lace-makers and sculptor Michelle Byrne. This involved a delicate lace-making demonstration intertwined with the sharing of poignant tales from the past and the creation of clay and plaster pieces mirroring the organic motifs of Borris Lace.
The final awardee was Highfield Healthcare in Dublin for their series of creative workshops centred around the Azure method titled “People and Place: Down Memory Lane”. Azure is a slow enquiry-based approach to looking at art designed for people living with dementia and their carer’s. Guided by Azure-trained visual artist Claire Halpin, these workshops embraced painting, printmaking and contemplation over artworks to foster interpersonal dialogue.
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- Age & Opportunity
- ArtsInNursingHomesDay
- Bealtaine
- Care Homes
- Community Hospitals
- Day Care
- National Arts in Nursing Homes Day Award
