Community
Limerick Based Kicking the Bucket Shortlisted for EPIC Award 2017
Limerick Based Kicking the Bucket Shortlisted for EPIC Award 2017. Pictured: Scottish miniature coffins found in 1836
‘Kicking the Bucket,’ a Limerick based series of seminars and creative workshops engaging in the topic of death, before ending in a public visual art exhibition held in 2016, has been shortlisted for an EPIC award to hopefully represent Ireland in the Voluntary Arts Organisation, held in the UK in March of this year.
‘Kicking the Bucket’ started off as a moment of dark humour shared amongst a group of friends, which soon evolved into a community project that touched the lives of many who are anxious about death. It aims to encourage conversations about illness, death and grief within family and friendship circles and in the wider community. The hope is that the sick and the grieving amongst us can experience more compassionate care.
Pictured: Sinead Dineen at a Kicking the Bucket event.
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Sinead Dineen, one of the course leaders of this unique project, is up for the award under the People’s Choice Section for her work with ‘Kicking the Bucket.’ She is a highly regarded visual artist and visual art lecturer in education and has a particular interest in arts and health practice relating to her personal experience of Stage 4 Ovarian Cancer. She has presented her work nationally including with OvaCare, National Centre for Arts and Health in Tallaght Hospital, University of Limerick SIBEAL Feminist and Gender Conference, and was co-organizer and artist-in-residence of Limerick’s first Death Cafe.
Katie Verling is the other course leader for the seminar series. She has decades of experience curating art exhibitions, arts festivals, concerts, and community projects and was founding Artistic Director of the Glor Arts Venue in Ennis. Following treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Katie has focused on creative community projects in Limerick, and issues related to healthcare and patient experience. She has written for the artsandhealth.ie perspective series and contributed to the current Arts Council / HSE review of Arts and Health practice and policy.
The Epic Awards were set up in 2010 by Voluntary Arts, an organisation that works across the UK and Republic of Ireland to promote participation in creative cultural activities.
Voluntary Arts works with local creative cultural groups, voluntary sector organisations, arts councils and local and national government, to help increase opportunities for creative participation – and support those who have already discovered the benefits of taking part.
The Epic Awards celebrate the achievement of voluntary arts groups across the UK and Republic of Ireland, by recognising the skill, innovation and hard work that goes into their activities.
