Colours
On Thursday 4 February, 25 people from across the North East PEACE III Partnership cluster met at an Interim Evaluation Workshop in The Lodge Hotel, Coleraine.
The purpose of the workshop was to reflect on progress to date and to identify key successes and challenges of the NE Peace III Programme. It is planned that the information collated will be used as a vital tool to develop the next phase of the Partnership’s Strategy and Action Plan.
A series of puppet making workshops themed around the legend of Irish Giant Finn McCool and the Scottish Giant Benandonner will be held in Larne at the end of March.
The 2 hour workshops, which are targeted at local primary schools, aim to explore the similarities and difference between the Irish and Ulster Scots traditions. The workshops are being held as part of the North East PEACE III Partnership’s Cultural Fusions programme (9b), and include construction and manipulation of puppets and combine expressive arts skills such as drama, music, storytelling, craft, design and technology. Two workshops are being held each day with a maximum of 30 children per workshop.
An exciting new exhibition, Cultural Stories in Textiles, opens for just three days this week at Harpur’s Hill Community Centre in Coleraine. The exhibition brings together arpilleras and quilts created by communities all over the world, including Ireland.
Arpilleras are a traditional textile craft of Latin America that developed in response to times of violence or conflict. Through them women found a way to express the hurt, anger and despair within their community and share experiences that are difficult to communicate in words. They also show scenes of everyday life and their ways to approach what was going on.
Cultural Stories in Textiles shows how textiles and domestic craft can be used as a means to express ordinary people’s responses to events that surround them. Arpilleras from Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico are displayed alongside textile pieces from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Panama and Ireland. Every piece of work tells a story of a maker, makers, communities and histories. There are stories of despair, anger and hurt, but also of kinship, hope and courage. The pieces dissolve boundaries of language and culture, communicating stories of real life experiences to others. They provide us with opportunities to relate to other cultures, traditions and histories, as well as reflect on our own experiences as individuals and communities.
The exhibition opens on Thursday 25th February and continues until 2pm on Saturday 27th February. The programme includes a number of special workshops for local schools and community groups, including one led by Healing Through Remembering exploring the arts as a medium for encouraging community dialogue and reconciliation.
The exhibition has been organised by Crafts with Love, a voluntary organisation working with both traditional and modern styles of crafting to explore and develop cross community interaction and diversity. It is curated by Roberta Bacic, originally from Chile, but now living in Benone, who has exhibited traditional and contemporary textiles internationally.
On 28th January 2010, approximately 250 people from across the North East cluster joined Willie Drennan and his Ulster Scots Band for an informal evening of music, stories and song in Ballymoney Town Hall. The first part of the evening featured a celebration of Rabbie Burns and his connection with Ulster while the second part of the evening offered the audience the opportunity to explore the Ulster Scots heritage and to participate in discussion.
This evening was organised as part of the North East PEACE III Cultural Fusions Programme, which offers people across the North East area the opportunity to explore different traditions, cultures and art forms.
