Presented as part of Imagine Belfast’s online programme 2021. More information here

What exactly is community art? Why do we need it in Northern Ireland? Why are community arts projects and organisations increasingly underfunded and struggling to survive?

In this short and punchy talk, Jan Carson will draw upon almost two decades of community arts practice in Northern Ireland, the United States and elsewhere. Offering examples from her own experience and plenty of hard-learnt insight she’ll talk about the vital role community arts projects have played in the Peace and Reconciliation process, the particular vitality and creativity of the Northern Irish sector and the potential still to be realized here. Come weary and lacking imagination. Leave enthused and revitalised!

The talk will be followed by a short discussion.

About the speaker:

Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She has a novel, Malcolm Orange Disappears and short story collection, Children’s Children, (Liberties Press), two micro-fiction collections, Postcard Stories 1 and 2 (Emma Press). Her novel The Fire Starters was published by Doubleday in April 2019 and won the EU Prize for Literature for Ireland in 2019 and the Kitschies Award for speculative fiction 2020. She was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2020. She is currently community outreach officer on an AHRC funded research project based at QUB which is exploring how Dementia is depicted in fiction. She has two books forthcoming in 2021: The Last Resort (short stories) and The Raptures (novel).