13 May 2020
By Bryan Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
The Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr John Sheehan
Lord Mayor of Cork, Councillor John Sheehan is calling on the children of Cork City to use their broad range of artistic talents to create a work of art that represents their view and experience of COVID-19.
With the support of the Lord Mayor of Cork Cllr. John Sheehan, Consultant Psychologist Dr. Gillian Moore – Groarke, ‘Arts for All’ Cork and Cork City Council, the Lord Mayor is calling children of all ages and abilities from Cork City to submit a creative work that expresses their personal experience of the Covid-19 pandemic.
All of the artistic creations submitted will be officially launched online as a digital exhibition on www.artsforall.ie and will coincide with Cruinniú na nÓg on 13 June 2020 as part of Cork City’s Cruinniú na nÓg programme.
Lord Mayor Cllr John Sheehan welcomes the ‘Creative Call’ initiative saying:
“This is a challenging time for all of us and we can’t underestimate how challenging this time is for our children who are missing playing with their friends, being challenged at school, and more. While we are all staying safe and ensuring we stay within our 5kms we can unleash our imagination and let our creativity flourish. I would like to encourage the children of Cork City to use their many creative talents – draw pictures, illustrate comics, write poems, letters, speeches, songs or stories – whatever it may be. Your creativity has no bounds!”
Eoin Nash, a member of the “Arts for All” steering committee says, “Arts for All” are delighted to be asked by the Lord Mayor to support this initiative. As an initiative of the Cork City Local and Economic Plan “Arts for All” will support and amplify the call out to children, and work to ensure the creative work exhibited is representative of the diversity of children that call Cork city their home”
Dr. Gillian Moore–Groarke, whose idea the Creative Call was said:
“I was inspired to start up this initiative with ‘Arts for All’ as it is vital that we document the experience of our children during this strange time. Through the ‘Arts for All’’ network of community-based arts organisations, we will ensure that our ‘call out’ for artistic work is representative and inclusive of the many voices of children in our city. The creative work that the youngest across our communities will share will live on as an exhibition for future audiences, giving us an imaginative insight into their ‘new normal’ lives”.
Submissions for the ‘Creative Call’ initiative will be accepted via creativecall@corkcity.ie from Friday May 8th to Friday May 29th 2020.