NcompasS Innovative projet
Working as partners to create the NcompasS project, Artlink and WheelWorks devised the aims and programme of a visual arts project that would involve two groups of young people in an exploration of individual and group identity, and in learing procesess about cultures.
The invited groups were drawn from the Giving Children an Even Break Scheme in Inishowen, wich amis to provide apportunities for schools in geographically isolated and rural areas, and from the youth group who attend the Indian Community Center in Belfast. The artforms explore by the project were a combination of traditional and digital media, including drawing, sculpture, darkroom photography, animation and filmmaking.
The yough people were all aged between 9 and 13, and came from contrasting backgrounds and cultures, ivolving urbal and rural lives and intersts. Hower, in their exchange of postcards and artwork, the hobbies of shopping and football, dancing and wheeled vehicles, hopes and dreams of the future, were of course, very similar.
The resulting participatory programme has taken place in the Artlink Studios in Inishowen, Glenmarkee National School in Carndonagh, the WheelWoks ArtCart and in the Indian Community Center in Belfast.
Originally planned to run during the spring of 2005 the project has had to overcome a series of organisational problems to allow the project to adapt and take place in the autumn of 2005. Much of the activities undertaken by the yough people tool place in September and has involved profesional artist Odette Boal, Sara Greavu and Maeve McIvor from Derry and Donegal, and Stephen Mullan and Veroniva Tate from Belfast.
The CD Room has been produced as a virtual exhibition, as a means of whocasing the remarcable work created by the yough people in Belfast and Donegal, through the artist led workkshops programme. The artwork includes animation, a short film and selected images of the artwork produced through drawing, collage, sculptue and photography.
For many of the yough people this was a new experience, and the CD shows the enjoyment and enthusiasmthey have brought to the project. Together with the artists they have created an original and vibrant exhibition, a powerful witness to theiir ideas and dreams for the future.