Galway Advertiser 2000/2000_08_03/GA_03082000_E1_048.pdf 

Extracted text

Accepting
S
tor o f G a l w a y A r t s Centre, Helen Carey,

4

the

Galway Arts Centre's
ince it w a s established in 1982, Galway Arts Centre has been one of the most important v e n u e s in the city a n d t h e county for exhibitions, workshops, read ings, d r a m a , a n d - since 1986 - the Cuirt International Literature Festival. However, as Fred Johnston points out in his interview with t h e new administra
recently the centre has b e e n o n the receiving e n d of a b a r r a g e o f criticism o v e r t h e n o n - a p p e a r a n c e of The Cuirt

Journal,

criticism that rapidly turned into virtually a n all-out assault o n t h e centre's very raison d'etre. This w e e k poet Fred J o h n s t o n , w h o established the first
Carey about the centre, its future, a n d her o w n b a c k g r o u n d in the arts. class at Galway Arts Centre want more from the cen tre in terms of activities. They're more demanding, she says, "And the Arts Centre wasn't really equipped to deal with that." What about the massive amount of money provided for refurbishment? The Arts Centre still wasn't able .. .. ? "No, no, I'm not saying that at all," Helen Carey insists. "I'm saying that it received that massive amount of funding between '95 to now to creak it into where it's going. You can get massive amounts of funding for an infrastructure, but you still have to be able to respond to that infrastructure with staff, with direction, with ambition, with all of the things which Ireland as a place, generally, was beginning to be more demanding about." So why was the Arts Centre lagging behind? " I think that the having to close down again, having re-opened, because of a construction issue, I think that damaged the process." She would, would she not, date the true problems from that time? Nothing before that? "I think history has to happen," Helen Carey says with poetic flourish. "I think that you end up having personalities clash, or whatever, it's all part of an organisation and all the rest of it, it goes through what it would have gone through anyway; but it came to a brick wall." recession. In many ways I felt that I was following odours haunting the Arts Centre's galleries. Helen Carey's answers are diplomatic and thoughtrecessions around." It was a period not altogether Helen believes she is positioned well to see 'the out. Clearly there is no desire here to conduct autop fruitless; she was searching, acquiring experience. human side of things.' She had always intended to come back to Ireland. "You ended up having people - and the Arts Centre sies on the centre's topsy-turvy, often quite secretive past. "If it hadn't come to that brick wall," says Helen, She came to Galway from a public Millennium arts actually is about people - it was one of the most strik moving with ease from history happening to hods and project in Bristol. "One of the things I'm good at is ing things about i t . . . .that it inspires such an amount mortar, "it might have evolved to the point . . . . to low budgets," Helen says oracularly: "I can make a of really vocal passion. People aren't afraid to tell you realise its potential a lot sooner. But the closing down pound last." Helen had been attracted to places where exacdy what they think. . . . " there appeared to be a solid arts tradition. And the recent criticism in letters to this newspaper? was the brick wall." Nuns Island Arts Centre, the old ex-church where it The position in Galway came up as her Bristol con Helen takes it on the chin with a dollop of diplomacy. all began, is still managed by Galway Arts Centre, tract neared an end; a friend suggested she should "But that's quite nice. But one of the things that you consider it. Ironically, given the nature of the recent kind of realise was that frustrations (in the centre) Helen says. So it has not been lost, as some might protests, the position seemed to suit Helen because were running at an all-time high. Not because people think. Galway Youth Theatre has workshops there. she had literature in her background, having spent wanted to get out but because people wanted to see it The building is leased, 'up to recently,' from the Education Board of the Presbyterian Church. But some time in a literary agency. work properly." Galway city has purchased the building recendy to "I knew nothing about anything in Galway. I had Had people 'wanted to get out'? The question hadn't known about the arts centre some eight or nine years been asked. Did Helen feel that the Galway Arts convert into the city's only municipal art gallery. "There is a lot of distance to travel before the roles are before that." Centre was deserving of its title when she first clear and the functions are clear, " Helen adds myste She took the new appointment pragmatically. "It arrived? So many other arts events, from readings to was a job. Let's not dress it up into anything like exhibitions and book-launches, now took place else riously. "Again, we're talking about a building, we're actually talking about something concrete," Helen romantic and sentimental. It was a job and it was one where in the city. The centre had become, surely, a explains, diving into those metaphors again; "which I wanted to do." She sees herself as an 'arts-provider' glorified, and expensive, civic gallery? the aspirations have to/if, and the building has to with a responsibility to Galway and the arts. "You cannot take Galway out of context of Ireland," respond. And that doesn't happen overnight. I've seen Galway already had its arts festival, literature festi Helen begins, "as an evolving society that's complete it happen too many times, where you try and squash val, festival of early music; what did she expect to ly different. One of the things that Galway Arts find at the arts centre? What she found were people Centre, to me, is, that it's a cypher, if you like, it's a something in and in fact it takes a lot more evolution eager to talk. microcosm of . . . the arts in Ireland, where people are to know what fits where and what's right for what "I didn't expect anything, to be honest. What I found demanding more. They do demand more. The centre That's going to take the time it takes." Suddenly it's hard to know whether one is discussing Nuns Island when I got there was a centre, if you like, in recovery. has to go through the trauma of being able to provide or the premises in Dominick Street. And it was one of the characteristics of it that. . . .peo more." ple wanted to talk endlessly about what were very The Arts Centre intends to recruit more staff. Why TRAUMA IN DOMINICK STREET major problems that had been in its recent past." It's a question of trying to do things as well and effi ne begins to feel the seduction of arts-speak. The refurbishment problems surrounding the build |however well-intentioned. It's hard to imag ciently as possible, some things which can be done at ing were high on the agenda. Helen, with her outdoor a stretch at present. Why shouldn't employment be ine that replying to someone about the fate public arts experience, was not unfamiliar with the of their poem demanded an overhaul of arts philoso generated. Helen argues. messier side of construction: "1 know very well how The new staff will be more business orientated, phy, or caused 'trauma' in Dominick Street. very demoralising it is when you get to the point Helen sees Galway in terms of the differences soci- when the centre introduces a shop selling prints ana where you have a great big opening for something etally between Galway's arts scene in the midbooks. Helen wonders where one might obtain a copy and then you have lo close down again because some of an international arts journal in Galway. Or. one Nineties and the scene unfolding over the coming thing hasn't worked." One remembers the sulphurous years. Now people formerly content to attend the odd might add mischeivously, a copy of The Cuir

Cuirt Festival, talks t o Helen

Never before has there been such a sustained attack on Galway Arts Centre. Never in the histo ry of the arts in Galway city has there been such public criticism. Letters to this newspaper have sung stridently of the suspension of a literary mag azine and, more, the disappointments felt by ordi nary individuals at the apparent reluctance of Galway Arts Centre to work for them. The language is blunt. "When are the people in the Arts Centre going to take the literary talent under their noses in Galway seriously?" This letter contin ues: "Apart from that, my friends and I have tried to get rooms, otherwise vacant, for small readings. There was never any time we were going to be entertained . . . .". Another letter speaks language familiar in other contexts: "Last week's letter emphasised the need for accountability . . . .There is a lot of funding going into the arts, especially into Galway.. .". Some language was angry: "The Arts Centre in not responding sooner (assuming they will respond) have shown their tardiness and disregard for people . . . .The directors and officers down there will have to read their job descriptions a bit closer." "It amazes me," voiced one correspondent, "to think how diffi cult it is for a heavily funded organisation to channel all the obvious literary enthusiasm available into something as established as The Cuirt Journal." What began as a protest at the disappearance of The Cuirt Journal, a well-produced but, from the outset, unpredictable publication of prose and poetry initially timed to coincide with the Cuirt Festival of Literature, mutated into general criticism of the Arts Centre and its officers. The public were not satisfied and, for once and healthily, were not afraid to put pen to paper to criticise the arts in Galway. The irate language of some of the letters was itself noteworthy. The mes sage to Galway Arts Centre was clear we are telling you things are wrong, so sort them out.

POUND-SAVER
n the face of this unprecedented criticism of a strongly funded Galway arts body, new Director Helen Carey seems to have inherited a poisoned chalice. Arts Centre directors on occasion have come and gone with greased celerity. But this one has come out fighting, eager to defend her staff and the centre. Helen Carey attended University College Dublin, reading history and politics. There followed a period of job-hunting, predominantly in the arts arena, though her background is not particularly artistic. "That was where my love lay." The arts industry had n't been bom in the 70s; Helen Carey moved into the education office of the National Gallery in Dublin, proceeding from there to The Neptune Gallery. For a time she worked on The Evening Herald. Arts' criti cism attracted her. In Paris she was introduced, she says, to contemporary art. Like most arts administra tors, when Helen Carey uses the word 'arts' she most often means visual arts. On November IS last year she moved into Galway Arts Centre at 47 Dominick Street. There had been no director for some time. A great deal of construction and expensive - not always successful - refurbishment had closed the centre for a period. T came to Galway because I'd spent twelve years in Britain I'd left in 1987. I'd worked in The Tate (Gallery) in London. . .1 went to work in Suffolk on a visual arts community project. Britain went into

I