Welcome to the new Project Season – I am delighted to finally share with you some of the thrilling performances, exhibitions and events about to explode out of the big blue building in the coming year.
Packed within these pages are exciting collaborations between world-renowned artists, bold new works from our Project Artists, the best in new and emerging talent taking to our stages, and a deep dive into our archive, starting with the extraordinary offsite projects from the 1990s, and bringing to light the immense history lived within these walls - the people, the art, the artists – a history teeming with a spirit and resolve that can be traced right up to the eventsof the past year.
And yet, while our upcoming season is bursting with daring, courageous ideas, it does not reflect the innumerable artists and ideas that are absent from these pages. We are living in a time of great economic growth but that growth is not trickling down to the cultural sector and most definitely not to the freelance artists and cultural workers who make up the many projects in our programme, projects that underpin the very work that we do within these walls.
We are grateful to The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon for their ongoing, long-term support, support that has enabled us to bring the work of these brilliant artists to our stages and galleries. The current government has made great public commitments to increase their support for the arts and cultural sector and I welcome those commitments, but it’s time for the government to stand by their pledge and invest in living artists and their work.
Since its founding over 50 years ago, Project has always supported artists who take risks. Sometimes the unsayable needs to be said, there are voices and ideas that need to be heard, and we believe that we live in a society that is hungry for challenge and debate. In this time of great global turmoil, it is crucial that artists have a safe space where their ideas and vision are cherished and protected, where bravery not only defines the art that they create but also defines the audiences they create it for. And Project is that space.
