Open Circle Arts, Co Kilkenny

Summary
Open Circle Arts is a small community arts project based in Kilkenny City, open to all women living in Kilkenny City and County. Women who are interested in working creatively with other women, who want to develop and expand their experience of the arts and who enjoy being part of a group, can apply to join each year. As a collective they strive to motivate and inspire enthusiasm for the arts in each other, create lifelong learning opportunities and space for enjoyable social experiences. The heart of the project is Open Circle Art House. The core groups meet weekly to work with tutors over a range of art forms, for example drawing, textiles, sculpture and printing. They also offer an outreach programme every year, in 2017 this included ‘The Consuming Project’, a theatre based project looking at the fashion industry from an environmental point of view, creative writing workshops and a very successful paper cutting group project.

Community Contact: Ronan Ryan [email protected]

Citation
“…………the key to this entry is that it makes the arts accessible to women of all ages engendering mutual encouragement and inspiration in those involved and a very palpable sense of community……….”