Participants sought for Carrick-on-Suir arts project about bereavement

An information meeting about a new community arts project honouring the experiences of people from the Carrick-on-Suir area whose partner or spouse died just before or during the Covid pandemic, takes place this Friday, March 4

Carrick-on-Suir’s Tudor Artisan Hub and Writing Changes Lives Writers’ Collective are looking for 12 people aged 50 and over who experienced this bereavement over the past two years to take part in the Tosú Arís (Starting Over) arts project.

People who wish to take part can sign up at the information meeting taking place in Carrick’s Nano Nagle Community Arts Centre at 7pm on Friday.

The finished art project will be showcased in a “tactile” mixed media exhibition in Carrick-on-Suir Library during the Bealtaine Festival that celebrates the arts and creativity as we age. The festival runs from May 16-20.

“Tosú Arís aims to collate the experiences of a particular group of people from Carrick-on-Suir and the surrounding area; those who were bereaved at any point during the months before the pandemic to more recent months,” explained Linda Fahy of the Tudor Artisan Hub.

“We mean specifically those who lost their life partner, spouse and who consider that their living situation changed utterly due to their bereavement.

This was, of course, further compounded during the isolation of the pandemic.

“Now that things are getting ‘back to normal’ for many of us as restrictions ease, we need to recognise and understand that it must be more difficult to adjust to post-lockdown life after loss.”

She said Tosú Arís will use the “transformative and healing power of the arts”, both visual and words, in experimental, innovative ways to capture the unique experiences of the participants and to learn about the needs of individuals who find themselves in such circumstances.

The project’s creative team have put together a programme that includes healing arts, reflective journaling, tribute poetry, visual arts, film and animation.

“This will ultimately provide a valuable resource that will show us how we as a community and a society can learn how we might better respond in the future,” said Ms Fahy.

The Tosú Arís workshops will be conducted in Carrick-on-Suir’s Sean Healy Library in a confidential manner during the months of March and April. All individual inputs will be treated confidentially.

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Film shot in Carrick-on-Suir is premiered at International Dublin Film Festival