September 11, 2011 Sunday Independent Allianz Business to Arts Awards 2011 Winners The arts online


Arts Audiences’ new media scheme saw Google volunteers mentoring selected arts organisations on their online strategy. Laura O’Brien reports


AN online strategy has become essential for any organisation trying to attract audiences. However, the fast- paced nature of technology has made it difficult to fully take advantage of what the web can offer.


A mentoring programme designed in partnership with Google Ireland for arts organisations to learn about how to utilise these new tools was the winner of the Best Use of Creativity in the Work- place category at the Allianz Business to Arts Awards. This new media scheme was created by Arts Audi- ences, which is a partner- ship initiative of the Arts Council and Temple Bar Cul- tural Trust. Implemented in 2010, it offered a mentoring scheme led by Google employees in their spare time to help arts organisations build relationships with their audiences online.


“One of the things that


we’ve concentrated on in Arts Audiences is new media and marketing, partly in response to what arts organisations tell us,” says Una Carmody, director of Arts Audiences. “This is one of the places


media strategy, search engine optimisation, online com- munity building and using new media to drive sales.


aware that the internet pro- vided them with new and cost effective ways of reach- ing audiences, but did not


that they feel they need sup- port and help with but also, in a lot of sectors, it’s a very fast moving environment and it’s something that peo- ple need to keep a close eye on.”


Organisations submitted


details of the projects they needed this mentoring for so that the scheme could cater for their business needs. The chosen organisa- tions were then mentored on subjects such as social


Four organisations took


part in the scheme in the first year – Balor Arts Festi- val, The Gate Theatre, Eigse Carlow Arts Festival and The Dock Arts Centre. “We work with the select- ed organisations, helping them to identify defined objectives and goals for their online strategy,” explains Marie Davis, an AdWords account manager at Google. “What we found was many of the organisations were


always have a defined strat- egy which was linked to their overall business objectives.” After the completion of the


‘One of the things that we’ve concentrated on in Arts Audiences is new media and marketing, partly in response to what arts organisations tell us’


project, each group was required to write a report on the scheme, which is pub- lished on the Arts Audiences website so that the knowl- edge is passed on. Google then took the knowledge gained from this to a workshop in February, which was attended by almost 60 representatives from numerous cultural organisations. The scheme was a success, with each group benefiting greatly from the initiative. “The Gate Theatre, for


example, saw a 16pc increase in visits to its website fol- lowing the introduction of an AdWords campaign and since implementing changes to its website,” Davis points out. This year, Google volun- teers will work with four dif- ferent arts organisations on their online strategy, which include the Galway Arts Fes- tival, the Chester Beatty Library, Garter Lane Arts Centre and Riverbank Arts Centre.


Love and weather go together – in a unique way


An opera featuring the people of Carlow and themes relevant to their everyday lives was a one-of-a-kind performance seen by an audience of nearly 1,000


SHELTER Me From The Rain, a unique opera project about Carlow, featuring Car- low people, started in 2007 when local authorities there were looking for new ideas on which to spend an arts budget they had built up. The winner of this year’s


Best Use of Creativity in the Community award in the Allianz Business to Arts Awards stands out as it is the largest ever Per Cent for Art commission, the first ever opera commissioned by a local authority and the first opera written in Ireland for community performers. One of Ireland’s leading conductors, Fergus Shiel, came up with the idea and was commissioned to make it all happen.


“Opera is such a rarified thing in Ireland compared to in other countries. This was the ideal opportunity to broaden its reach and make opera accessible to people who never thought of going to see one or taking part.” Shiel’s concept was to nor- malise the whole experience of the arts for people from all sorts of backgrounds. He held auditions around the county and cast 103 singers, some of whom had never performed before. Belfast composer Brian Irvine was commissioned to write the music. “He was very open-mind- ed and didn’t see working with people with no experi- ence as a limitation, but rather that nobody came with baggage,” says Shiel. The RTÉ National Sym-


phony Orchestra got inter- ested and John McIlduff was commissioned to do the text. “He held focus group


meetings in pubs and restau- rants around the county to come up with a story rele- vant to people’s lives. The two recurring themes were love and the weather. Thir- teen scenes were created fea- turing these two themes. It was quite evocative and beautiful.” The cast and crew prac- tised over a full year and, in all, many entities and groups pooled their efforts to help shape the opera production. For instance, local youth choir Aspiro became the rehearsal choir and chorus, while Carlow Youth Orches- tra became the rehearsal orchestra, with the Seven Oaks Hotel providing rehearsal space. In addition, Carlow VEC


Google Ireland developed a mentoring programme which saw employees volunteer their spare time to teach arts organisations about online strategy and building audiences. This year Galway Arts Festival will take part


developed a FETAC-accred- ited course to equip volun-


ALLIANZ BUSINESS TO ARTS AWARDS 2011 5


Above: Aoibhinn Foley and Tony Murray performing in Shelter Me From The Rain, an opera commissioned by Carlow Local Authorities written by Brian Irvine and John McIlduff. Below: The opera featured over 100 local people from Carlow performing and learning stage craft


teers with stage production skills.


According to the Carlow


Local Authorities, one of the main objectives of the com- mission was to create an experience that was com- pletely unique in Ireland, while also engaging with as many people as possible. The final production was staged for four nights in Car- low’s new George Bernard Shaw Theatre in early May.


A cut above the rest in Carlow


A hairdresser’s local photo shoot that was meant to be a team building exercise led to the formation the artistically-driven and hugely successful Pure Thinking Community Group


F


OUR years ago Carlow-based hairdresser Con- nie Byrne Hyland decided to do a


photo shoot involving clients and the community as a team building exercise for her employees.


It was so successful it led to the formation of a sepa- rate artistically-driven group – Pure Thinking Community Group – which has won the ¤5,000 Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) Arts Award this year in the Allianz Business to Arts Awards. That first photo shoot, entitled ‘The Colony’, hap- pened in a pheasant colony outside Carlow town and its theme aimed to address the recession and show how people can look beau- tiful without having to spend a fortune. The mod- els were people from the town and Byrne Hyland’s team did the styling. “Fashion editor of Life magazine Constance Harris picked up on what we did


‘The Pure Thinking Community Group’s mission statement is to create an awareness of those who live around us. We’ve already started on our fourth initiative’


and thought it was a posi- tive and upbeat approach to the recession,” she says. “When it was so success- ful, we wanted to carry on doing photo collections using specific themes and asked people from the com- munity to be involved to elaborate on particular sto- ries.” The second shoot


involved older people and


was called ‘Beauty and Wis- dom of Age’. “We thought it would be interesting to go back to Druidic times and have the shoot in Dublin, with the idea that these people had come from the past and wondered what Ireland had come to,” con- tinues Byrne Hyland. Aiming to reflect the dif- ferent nationalities now liv- ing in Carlow, the third initiative was called ‘Mixed and Mumbled’ and fol- lowed the same template as the previous two – 15 pho- tos and workshops around the theme. In September, the group presented an exhibition of its three years’ work called ‘Mixed Colony of Beauty’ at VISUAL: Centre for Con- temporary Art and George Bernard Shaw Theatre in Carlow. It started with team building workshops by local music facilitator Eddie Sheehan and ended with multiple location shoots by Polish photogra- pher Agata Stoinska. The


Shiel says the theatre was packed every night and about 1,000 people came to see the opera in total. “The performances of this opera provided one of the most unique experiences yet in the George Bernard Shaw Theatre, which has been in operation for 18 months. It stretched the resources and the facilities of the theatre to its maximum, and proved to everybody in Carlow that


such an ambitious project can be brought to fruition,” Carlow Local Authorities stated in a document on the project.


Carlow Local Authorities paid for half the costs, with the balance coming from the Arts Council and the Broad- casting Commission of Ire- land, because of a 10-part radio documentary on the project produced for Lyric FM.


Pure Thinking Community Group started out as a small photo shoot four years ago in Carlow and has since evolved into an artistic venture that strives to create awareness of the people that live around it. The innovative project is already working on its fourth initiative ‘The Wall R Us (Is it a wall or is it us)’


whole process was cap- tured, along with a series of individual interviews in two 10-minute films by Marc-Ivan O’Gorman. “The Pure Thinking Community Group’s mis- sion statement is to create an awareness of those who live around us. We’ve already started on our fourth initiative – ‘The Wall


R Us (Is it a wall or is it us)’ project. This will be a 26 ft piece of art outside the Cas- tle Tavern pub on Castle Street, which aims to show that pubs are not just about drink, but people, friend- ship, comfort and music,” says Byrne Hyland. In July, the group asked


as many people as they could to fill out specially


designed beer mats asking questions about a story, favourite song or person that reminded them of the pub. This will be amalga- mated into a work of art. “Carlow Local Authori-


ties have funded half of this project and we have plan- ning permission for the piece to be permanent. It will open on 30 September.”


Byrne Hyland says she


didn’t set out to make her business stronger through this process but this has happened organically. “It allowed the seven girls [the staff] to be edu- cated on a personal level as well as technically. They are hugely creative but to be the best you can be, I think you need to give


something back to the com- munity, which earns a busi- ness respect in a town.” The judges have stipulat- ed that the ¤5,000 bursary from Dublin Airport Authority should be used by Pure Thinking Commu- nity Group to further their partnership with Connie Byrne Hyland Hairdressing and create new work.


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