Irish Hospice Foundation: Artist Commission to Support Healthcare Workers

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Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF), with the support of The Creative Ireland Programme, offering commissions for artists to develop new creative work in support of the health and wellbeing of care staff in the HSE.

The pandemic brought many things to people’s attention including the value that creative practice plays in people’s lives, and the crucial roles of care staff in hospital settings.

The Arts & Engagement Programme at IHF, founded at the start of the pandemic, has been supporting the role of creative practice for people affected by dying, death and bereavement. It has had a significant positive impact, helping people sense-make when they are bereft.

Dominic Campbell, IHF’s Arts & Engagement Production Officer, says: “We are delighted to be working with Creative Ireland and the HSE on supporting professional care teams who engage with dying, death, and bereavement on a daily basis. These commissions will focus on the supporting these workers and figuring out how creative work can be of value to them in their work.”

The HSE employs approximately 110,000 staff in Ireland. Those who work regularly with dying, death, and bereavement could be in any part of the country doing emotionally and physically demanding work. Their working days are often time poor and irregular. How can artists create something of value, useful and meaningful for these people taking into consideration the time pressures of staff and scale of the HSE? Could this be something people might carry around in their pocket, reach for on a tea-break, share with colleagues? Could it be a distraction, a moment of beauty, an exercise, recipe, manifesto, a wish for making wellbeing? A fifteen-minute solo workshop?

We are commissioning creatives to join us on a journey to explore how creativity can make moments of care and wellbeing for HSE staff. We are offering four commissions of €2,500 per artist, plus a materials budget. The project will be developed with IHF’s Arts and Creative Engagement team. Artists and IHF will liaise with relevant HSE teams and staff throughout.

This development will be informed by our Hospice Friendly Hospitals (HFH) and Compassionate End of Life in Residential Care Centres (CEOL) networks. Successful resources will be further refined and adapted so they can be widely distributed to HSE staff from early winter 2022.

EDITOR’S INFORMATION

Closing date for applications: Wednesday 20^th April 2022 at 5pm
Announcements: Applicants will be notified week beginning 25^th April 2022
Public announcement: Early May 2022

Process for Application

Please send the following information to Arts@hospicefoundation.ie

Cover letter – Max two sides of A4 explaining why this project interests you.

Video clip – Max two minutes long explaining why this project interests you.

And

CV – Current CV detailing relevant work and creative practice.

If you have requirements that limit your ability to apply, please contact the office and we will endeavour to support your application. If you wish to submit your application by post, send it to:

Elizabeth Hutcheson, Irish Hospice Foundation, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau St, Dublin 2, D02 YE06.

Criteria for Application:

IHF are looking for creative people with demonstrable excellence in their chosen field who are willing to go on this journey with us.

You might work in any creative field, may have health care expertise, or relevant personal experience or expertise.

You might work in performance, plastic arts, visual, digital, design, architecture, literature or be process driven.

You will be willing to engage with a peer process.

You will be willing to consider the creative work in this project as something that is in service to the need of others.

Key 2022 Dates

April	Call out and artist selection process
April	Artists on boarding sessions, scoping, development and testing of ideas at network sessions of HSE staff
May	Further development, additional sessions, additional consultation and focus groups
June	Selection of ideas for final development
July, August, September	Development digitisation or print or video making depending on creative content
October	Launch date to be confirmed

For more information, visit IHF Arts in Healthcare online.

About Irish Hospice Foundation

IHF are the national agency focused on death, dying, grief and loss. They work with a vision of Ireland where “every death matters” delivering education, training, and awareness programmes alongside systemic and social change strategies and policy campaigns. Their ambition is to reduce the impact of carelessness where it leads to suffering. The pandemic raised awareness of the value of IHF’s knowledge in dying, death and bereavement.

Over 35 years IHF has become embedded across the delivery of care in Ireland. IHF works with multiple HSE Departments, the NGO sector, and community sector. IHF’s many programmes include Hospice Friendly Hospitals with Ireland’s acute hospital service, Compassionate End of Life with the residential care sector, Nurses for Night-Care delivering care in the community directly to families, and the Bereavement Network aligning the voluntary sectors support.

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