Since March 2020, Covid 19 has profoundly impacted our family lives, our workplaces and our social spaces.   Like other arts centres and cultural institutions throughout the country, Riverbank Arts Centre has had to reimagine and rearrange the way we work with artists and the way we present events and exhibitions to our audiences. As an intimate venue, we are in one of the most challenging positions and we had to make some tough decisions ensuring that public health guidelines are at the forefront of our artistic programme planning. For now, our venue and the cafe remain closed, but as soon as it is it safe to do so we look forward to welcoming you back to live events –  and all the warmth, excitement and entertainment that goes along with a night out.

Our dedicated team has been working very hard to deliver events online and to support artists in developing and creating new work. We have been very busy behind the closed doors, facilitating rehearsals and exhibitions, devising new ways of bringing art to schools and homes, and producing new work that will be there for all of us to enjoy when the time is right.  In the coming months we will continue to engage, commission and support artists  through these challenging times, and we will keep presenting work on various online platforms that allow us to connect with our audiences at home, in schools and wherever technology allows. This month we are delighted to partner with Kildare Readers Festival to bring you a wealth of literary events all available online and to beam authors Shane Hegarty and Padraig Kenny to Kildare schools as part of our Whiteboard school programme. Make sure you check our website and social media for event updates. 

Autumn plans and highlights include:

VISUAL ART

ART FEEDS – Kildare Art Collective
McKenna Gallery – September/October  2020

Kildare Art Collective & Friends present a collaborative project developed as a platform to process and document our lives throughout these strange times, while creating an opportunity for communication, conversation and crossover between disciplines. Participating artists worked collaboratively exchanging ideas and working together using alternative methods of communication such as email, letter, carrier pigeon, phone calls, telepathy, video calls and text. The diverse work created during this project is an eclectic mix with interesting themes and details arising as we adjust to our new reality and navigate changes to how we work together.

See interviews with the artists and view the work online here

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THEATRE: Keith Walsh – PURE MENTAL – nationwide tour (postponed to Summer 2021)

Following our successful work-in-progress presentation in June this year, Riverbank Arts Centre is partnering with writer/performer Keith Walsh and director Janet Moran to produce a nationwide tour of this brand new play.  Full tour details here

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SCHOOLS PROGRAMME

In Autumn 2020 and Spring 2021, we will present a brand new initiative – the Riverbank Whiteboard programme, a series of interactive arts broadcast to the schools throughout Kildare featuring leading children’s writers, illustrators and theatre-makers – for more details contact theresa@riverbank.ie

In 2019, 6,500 children from 41 schools attended events at Riverbank Arts Centre as part of a school trip. We are committed to programming for primary and secondary schools in an innovative way this Autumn, despite the Covid 19 restrictions.

We are delighted to have over 300 children participating in our #ScienceWeek workshops hosted by Super Paua – Stargazing & Storytelling, Citizen Science meets Theatre Making and Is Peace Possible – a Zine Workshop.

We are partnering with leading theatre company Cahoots NI to present The University of Wonder  & Imagination, an innovative immersive theatre broadcast live from Belfast into classrooms in November.

As the Kildare partner of Fighting Words we are continuing to present Creative Writing Workshop to schools – for details of upcoming Secondary School Workshops click here.

We have created a Post Primary Schools  Resources Pack for our current Exhibition ART FEEDS by Kildare Art Collective & Friends – for details of the pack or to make a ‘virtual visit’ to the exhibition, please contact  theresa@riverbank.ie

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RIVERBANK ASSOCIATE ARTISTS AND CREATIVES – OPEN CALL

In September 2020, Riverbank  issued an open call for five associate artists. The standard of the residency proposals was exceptionally high. Our independent assessors selected five applications, two of which were collaborations. The
artists selected for the Momentum Award are:
MOLLIE MOLUMBY
ALAN HOWLEY
ÁINE O’HARA
COLLABORATIVE PROJECT: MARK BALL & AOIFE RALEIGH
COLLABORATIVE PROJECT: ALLIE WHELAN, EMMA FINEGAN, LISA NALLY & JENNIFER AUST

We look forward to working with these artists over the next few months – each project will have a sharing event of some kind, so watch this space! Meanwhile you can read about their residency plans here. 

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KILDARE READERS FESTIVAL
Riverbank Arts Centre will partner with Kildare Library Service for the 11th annual KILDARE READERS’ FESTIVAL in October 2020.  The key literary events of the Festival weekend,  including the popular 10 Books You Should Read and the Sunday Morning Sessions, will all be available online.  More info here

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