THE ROLE OF THE ARTS PLAN

The role of an Arts Plan is to set-out how the Council intends to assist in the development of the Arts in the City over the next five years. It will describe the Council’s vision for the arts and the importance it places on the arts.

Central to an Arts Strategy is an investigation of ...

• The creative purpose of the project.
• The creative outcome of project with reference to these purposes.
• Audience / participation targets.
• The economic benefit of the project to the city.
• The quality of the production factors.

The intention of the City Arts Plan is to form a framework within which the Arts department can develop its work and whose basic principles can be adopted by other sections of the Council where they involve arts activity. It will:

• Define policies for dealing with artists, arts organizations setting out clear objectives for what the Council would like to see achieved in return for its involvement.
• Lead to the development and implementation of policies in areas such as arts development, public art, public realm, community arts, arts education, arts facility development, cultural industry, cultural tourism and cultural marketing.
• Begin a process of developing a strategic artistic direction for Waterford.
• Begin a process to develop policies to harmonise and raise public awareness of the value of artistic endeavors – their benefits and impacts.
• Aim to increase the role of the local arts in the economic, environmental and social development of the city.

For the general community the plan should:

• Encourage and facilitate for all of us to develop and use our creativity.
• Develop policies to keep our local, performing and visual artists in the community and attract others to join them.
• Stimulate interaction and encourage cross-cultural artistic programmes.
• Encourage other artistic collaborations and debates such as between art and technology, art and community and art aiding the business community, arts and health, arts and the aged, arts and tourism etc.

Waterford is at a crossroads with regard to the development of future arts opportunities and the development of a new Arts Plan. There is the opportunity to introduce new initiatives to help new start-up companies and cooperatives, while also encouraging existing organisations to re-think their strategies with regard to excellence, sustainability, resources and cooperative ventures.

To get to a workable position we have to examine a number of options.

• Are the current arts conditions catering for the needs of the community?
• Should we strive for a more ambitious arts programme?
• Should the arts be more socially inclusive?
• Should we be looking at non-traditional arts resources (abandoned buildings programme/community art houses programme)?
• Is the City Council maximizing its resources and/or could the resources be used more efficiently (grants and infrastructure)?
• In the context of arts should we be looking at new, possibly, non arts partnerships?
• Should we create a scenario to encourage business to engage in arts through examining legislation/regulation incentives?
• Should we positively discriminate towards arts organisations that pool and share resources and encourage cooperation?
• Should we consider pooling our resources to partner in regional or national schemes?

If you would like to fill in your name and address at the end of the survey, and would like to be advised of future events in Waterford we will enter you in for a raffle for €500 first prize with generous vouchers for the Theatre Royal and Garter Lane for 2nd and 3rd. Please note this is only for people replying on-line.