'Evolving Access’ mini symposium to be held in Mayo theatre
AS part of Mayo County Council’s Arts Service professional development programme 2025, an event titled ‘Evolving Access’ will take place in Westport Town Hall Theatre on October 29, from 10.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m.
Firstly, a mini symposium will take place on the day from 10.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. It will focus on how access solutions have developed over the last 25 years and their potential future direction from the perspective of artists with disabilities, venues, festival organisers and arts organisations.
The mini symposium will be curated by Damien O’Connor, arts and disability coordinator, Mayo County Council. Presentations will be given by Alan James Byrnes, disabled artist and festival organiser, Orla Moloney, director, Project Arts Centre, and Padraig Naughton, executive director, Arts and Disability Ireland.
The event will conclude with a question and answer session to the presenters.
Lunch will be provided and attendees will have the option to attend a tour of ‘The Space Between Real and Shadow,’ an exhibition by artist Breda Burns, at the Custom House Studios and Gallery, Westport, at 2.30 p.m.
Breda presents an immersive installation that invites audiences into the non-typical brain and explores how we navigate the world differently. Sign language interpreters and a hearing loop system will be available for this event.
In 2010, Mayo County Council’s Arts Service along, with Arts Council / An Comhairle Ealaíon, Arts & Disability Ireland (ADI), the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and South Tipperary County Council’s arts office, launched Shift In Perspective - a resource pack that came out of the Arts and Disability Network pilot Project (ADNP) 2008/2010.
Over the last 25 years, Mayo County Council’s Arts Service has actively encouraged artists, groups of people with disabilities from children to older adults, venues and arts organisations to come together and collaborate in the development of quality arts projects.
Arts venues throughout the county have established long term relationships with local artists, and groups of people with disabilities, who in turn have participated in projects. These projects encompass a wide range of art-forms including painting, print-making, stained glass, sculpture, bronze casting, poetry, book binding, dance, music, drama and film making.
Tickets for the mini symposium, the exhibition tour along, with details of sign language interpreters and hearing loop system, are available here.
People can also get further information by emailing Mayo Arts Service at mayoarts@mayococo.ie