Advisory/Steering Group of current campaign phase:

Conor Shields, Community Arts Partnership and convenor of ArtsMatterNI
Darren Ferguson, Beyond Skin
Gwen Stevenson, freelance artist
Sally Young, The Spectrum Centre
David Boyd, Beat Carnival
Grainne Woods, Rogue Encounters
David Calvert, Rogue Encounters
Dave Hyndman, NVTV
Richard Lavery, Accidental Theatre
Josh Schultz, Community Arts Partnership

Past phases of the ArtsMatterNI campaign supporters and signatories

ANNUALLY FUNDED PROGRAMME ORGANISATIONS

Aisling Ghear Theatre Company

The Irish Language Theatre Company in the North of Ireland. Based in Belfast, it is the resident theatre company in the Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich – an Irish language arts and cultural centre in West Belfast. An Compántas Amharclainne Gaeilge i dTuaisceart na hÉireann. Lonnaithe i mBéal Feirste, is é Aisling Ghéar an compántas amharclainne cónaitheach i gCultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, ionad ealaíon Gaeilge ar Bhóthar na bhFál in Iarthar Bhéal Feirste.

All Set Cross Cultural Project

The All Set project delivers cross-cultural programmes in schools throughout N. Ireland linking all sectors within formal education settings. These programmes are unique to All set and have been running in primary schools since 1996.

An Droichead

Is eagraíocht Ghaeilge muid a chuireann teanga agus cultúr na nGael chun cinn trí oideachas, ealaín, seirbhísí teaghlaigh agus pobail, agus obair fhor-rochtana. An Droichead is an Irish language organisation that promotes the development of Irish language and culture through education, arts, family & community services, and outreach work.

Andersonstown Music School

Formed in 1991, Andersonstown Traditional & Contemporary Music School is a community based music project that provides opportunities for everyone to participate in music classes and activities throughout Belfast.

Array Studios

Array studios was established in 1994 by a group of early career artists intent on making a difference to the world of visual art in Belfast.

Arts & Business Northern Ireland

Arts & Business (A&B), formerly known as The Association of Business Sponsorship of the Arts (ABSA), was set up 35 years ago as a UK wide creative network that advocates and facilitates creative partnerships between the private and cultural sectors.

Arts and Disability Forum

The ADF is a catalyst for empowering disabled people who are interested in the arts.

Arts for All

Based on the York Road since 2000, Arts for All has been a bedrock of community arts in north Belfast for 15 years.

ArtsEkta

ArtsEkta is a multi-award winning cultural organisation that works to develop intercultural relationships at the heart of the community and is home to the Belfast Mela – the largest celebration of cultural diversity on the island of Ireland.

Beat Carnival

Beat Carnival’s role is to create and produce carnival arts, organise and direct performances, train and develop artists and encourage community participation and ambition.

Belfast Community Circus School

Belfast Community Circus acts not only as a vehicle for bringing about personal development through teaching children and young people in some of the most disadvantaged communities in Northern Ireland, but also as a training school for professional teachers and performers of circus arts.

Belfast Exposed Photography

Belfast Exposed is Northern Ireland’s principal gallery of contemporary photography, commissioning, publishing and showing work by artists and photographers from Northern Ireland and across the world.

Belfast International Arts Festival

Belfast International Arts Festival, formerly known as Belfast Festival at Queen’s, is the city’s longest running international arts event.

Belfast Music Society

The Belfast Music Society was founded in 1921 to promote the performance and enjoyment of classical chamber music.

Belfast Print Workshop

As a membership-focused atelier, BPW provides a fully equipped and purpose-built studio with year-round access for a capacity of 100 artists.

BelfastTrad – Traditional Music and Dance Society

The goal and ethos of the Society from the beginning has been to ensure that the shared traditions of Irish music and dance are available to all sections of the community in a neutral setting.

Big Telly Theatre Company

Big Telly is the longest established professional theatre company in Northern Ireland. Their mission is to invest in the development of professional theatre, theatre skills and creative expression through theatrical experiences that surprise, stimulate and entertain.

Bruiser Theatre Company

Bruiser Theatre Company is Northern Ireland’s foremost physical theatre company, producing high quality theatre that excites and stimulates audiences.

Cahoots NI Ltd

Cahoots NI is a Belfast based theatre company producing boldly innovative work for children and their families; their distinctive style combines magic and illusion, physical theatre and original music.

Catalyst Arts

Catalyst Arts was formed in 1993 in response to what was seen as a cultural vacuum. It is Belfast’s primary artist-led organisation.

Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival

The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival was established in the Autumn of 1999 with our first festival taking place in May 2000. CQAF strive to be welcoming, professional and boundlessly curious; playful, ambitious and rigorous; resourceful, honest, and generous; collaborative, Belfastian and world class.

Centre for Contemporary Art

Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) fosters a wide range of artistic, curatorial, and critical practices through five programme streams: research and production, exhibition-making, public programmes, publishing, and residencies.

Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann

Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann is the largest group involved in the preservation and promotion of Irish traditional music.

Community Arts Partnership

Community Arts Partnership is an independent advocate for community arts and offers the widest possible range of assistance and opportunity to get creative and engage in community-based arts activity.

Craft and Design Collective

The Craft & Design Collective is an independent not-for-profit craft development organisation dedicated to the celebration, support and promotion of excellent Craft, Applied Art and Design.

Craft Northern Ireland

Craft Northern Ireland, is the sector-lead body for the promotion and development of the design-led contemporary craft industry in Northern Ireland.

Creative Exchange

Founded in 1996, Creative Exchange has grown into a dynamic Belfast based visual arts studio space providing essential workspace for visual artists at all stages of their careers.

Crescent Arts Centre

The Crescent is an arts centre and cultural hub where diversity and creativity flourish as we lead the way in artistic development and entertainment.

Culturlann McAdam O Fiaich

An Ghaeilge tríd na healaíona, na healaíona tríd an Ghaeilge. The Irish language through the arts, the arts through the Irish language

Dance Resource Base (NI) Ltd

Supporting the dance community in NI, Dance Resource Base provide practical facilities, resources and services for those involved in dance and advocate to raise the profile of the art form.

Digital Arts Studios

Digital Arts Studios provide Artists’ Residencies, Equipment Hire, Training, Outreach & Exhibitions.

Down Community Arts Ltd

Down Community Arts programme workshops in a spectrum of art forms including visual arts, dance, music, crafts, across the Down area and beyond.

Du Dance

DU Dance (NI) is a professional dance development company based in Belfast and working across the island of Ireland, the UK and internationally.

Dylan Quinn Dance Theatre

The company was established in 2009 with the aim of creating high quality professional productions from and within it’s rural base in Northern Ireland while increasing access to high quality professional and community dance in Northern Ireland.

Dumbworld Ltd

Dumbworld is an artist led creative production company. Dumbworld makes work that is to be found at the intersection of music, image and words including film, opera, documentary, oratorio, animation, public art installation, performance pieces, theatre and curatorial projects.

East Side Arts

East Side Arts mission is to Inspire EastSide residents and visitors by celebrating east Belfast, nurturing creative talent and delivering excellent programmes and events.

Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company

Echo Echo favours collaborative and co-operative working methods. The company is organised as an ensemble with a group of artists who are committed to long term collaboration and mutual support.

Féile an Phobail

Féile an Phobail is based in West Belfast. It provides a programme of arts, cultural and community-based activities throughout the year with its flagship festival, the August Féile being the highlight of Ireland’s festival calendar.

Flax Art / Orchid Studios

Flax Art/Orchid Studios operate as one organisation providing a portfolio of subsidised studio provision for the needs of emerging, mid-career and established artists.

Glasgowbury

Glasgowbury’s aim is to support and enhance the profile of new and emerging artists from Northern Ireland and beyond while making arts accessible and available to all at a local level.

Golden Thread Gallery

Golden Thread Gallery (GTG) is a medium-scale, publicly funded, contemporary art gallery based in Belfast that is recognised as having charitable status. It provides a welcoming space for the public to engage with contemporary visual art…

Grand Opera House, Belfast

The Grand Opera House is Northern Ireland’s premier theatre, presenting an outstanding programme of drama, dance, opera, comedy, musicals and family shows.

Greater Shantallow Community Arts / Studio 2 Derry

Greater Shantallow Community Arts believes in people, and putting people first. The Arts in all its forms, mediums and opportunities is the most wonderful vehicle to allow people to be themselves.

In Your Space (NI) Ltd

In Your Space Circus, based in Derry, is the Northwest’s leading Circus and Street Theatre Company. We are responsible for such amazement as; Carnival of Colours, the Wonder Windows in Derry/Londonderry…

Irish Pages: A Journal of Contemporary Writing

Irish Pages is a biannual journal, edited in Belfast and publishing, in equal measure, writing from Ireland and overseas. Duillí Éireann is iris dhébhliantúil é, a chuirtear in eagar i mBéal Feirste agus a fhoilsíonn ar chomhfad, scríbhneoireacht as Éirinn agus thar lear.

Kabosh Theatre Ltd

Kabosh is committed to challenging the notion of what theatre is and where it takes place. The company aims to reinvent the ways in which stories are told, commissioning new writing and devising work for site-specific environments and installation.

Kids in Control

KIC’s mission is to promote art that is about everything and for everyone, and to create art locations for individual and community discovery.

Maiden Voyage (NI) Ltd

Maiden Voyage is an artist-led commissioning company working with local, national and international collaborators.

Moving on Music

Moving on Music is the leading promoter of jazz, folk, roots, traditional, classical and ‘other’ music in Northern Ireland.

New Lodge Arts

New Lodge Arts provide innovative, fun and educational activities that stretch right across the community and political divide in north Belfast.

Northern Visions Ltd

Northern Visons is Belfast’s Local TV Station. A mix of local news, current affairs, arts, culture, music and heritage.

Oh Yeah Music Centre

Oh Yeah is Belfast’s dedicated music hub, a resource for music makers and also for the business of music. Their mission statement is ‘Open Doors To Music’. Oh Yeah combine the verve and resourcefulness of the music industry with a programme of social value.

Open Arts

The mission of Open Arts is to engage with disabled people in delivering high quality activities and events across a range of art forms.

Open House Traditional Arts Festival Ltd

Open House Festival was established in Belfast in 1999 and moved to Bangor in 2013

Panarts

Belfast Nashville Songwriters

Paragon Studios / PS²

PS² = Paragon Studios / project space –[pssquared], is a small artist collective, with studio space in the centre of Belfast.

Photo Works North/Source Photographic Magazine

Source is a quarterly photography magazine, published in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They publish emerging photographic work and engage with the latest in contemporary photography through news, thoughtful features and reviews of the latest exhibitions and books from Ireland and the UK.

PLACE

PLACE understand that our environment has a huge impact on personal well-being, economic prosperity, and social cohesion. PLACE think that everybody deserves to live in a great place, and that design and innovation can transform the way people relate to where they live.

Play Resource Warehouse

Play Resource collect non-toxic waste materials from industry and redistribute them for free to over 2,500 groups and organisations working with children, young people, and community groups all over Northern Ireland.

Portadown 2000 (Millennium Court Arts Centre)

Millennium Court Arts Centre houses two purpose-built gallery spaces and has been described as one of Northern Ireland’s premiere art spaces.

QSS @ Bedford Street

QSS’s vision is to promote, improve and advance public education in the arts and to stimulate public interest in the Arts for the benefit of the community.

Replay Productions Ltd

Replay Theatre Company makes innovative, quality work for everyone under the age of 19: from the tiniest babies to the oldest teenagers, for children and young people with Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties, for school groups, for families, for festivals.

Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association

The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association Northern Ireland Branch (RSPBANI) is a governing body to oversee Pipe band competition in Northern Ireland.

Sole Purpose Productions

Sole Purpose aim to produce new theatre that contributes to social change, explores the dynamics of human relationships and promotes good relations.

Spanner in the Works

The company was created by combining the talents of four women who met during actor training at the Lyric Theatre Drama Studio Belfast. It remains an all-female led theatre company today and is led by Artistic Director Patricia Downey.

Sticky Fingers Arts

Sticky Fingers was established in 2002, as the first dedicated arts program for very young children in Northern Ireland. They work to ensure that every child has the opportunity to experience the wonder of childhood and to have access to experiences that will provide them with the confidence, skills and tools to reach their full potential.

Streetwise Community Circus

S.C.C.W. aims to make circus skills accessible to people throughout Northern Ireland – irrespective of gender, age, disability, or economic, religious or cultural background.

Terra Nova Productions

Based in East Belfast, Terra Nova Productions is Northern Ireland’s only professional theatre company to place intercultural work at the core of what they do.

Tinderbox Theatre

Tinderbox Theatre Company is based in Belfast. and is one of Northern Ireland’s longest established and most respected independent theatre companies. Tinderbox is dedicated to the creation of new work for the theatre, the artists who create it, and the artistic environment in which its work takes place

Thrive Audience Development (NI) Services Ltd

Thrive believe that culture can transform lives and that everyone should have access to this opportunity. To achieve this, Thrive help cultural organisations know and grow their audiences.

The Armagh Rhymers

The Armagh Rhymers are one of Ireland’s most celebrated traditional music and theatre ensembles. For 30+ years we have delighted audiences at international children’s theatre festivals, ritual drama and folk festivals.

The Black Box Trust

The Black Box is housed in a Grade II listed building on Hill Street in the Historical Cathedral Quarter of Belfast. The Black Box has been established as one of the principal arts and entertainment venues in the city,

The John Hewitt Society

Inspired by the ideals and ideas of the poet and political writer John Hewitt, The John Hewitt Society provides opportunities for individuals across Northern Ireland to explore issues of difference and identity through literature and creative writing.

The Lyric Theatre (NI)

The award-winning Lyric Theatre makes a unique and vital contribution to the community as the only full-time producing theatre in Northern Ireland.

The MAC

The MAC is a cultural hub and since opening in 2012 has quickly become a beacon for the ongoing regeneration of Belfast.

The Playhouse Theatre and Arts Centre

Local community theatre with an education and outreach department, plus a dance studio and gallery.

TheatreNI

TheatreNI is the representative body to support and develop theatre and the performing arts for all in Northern Ireland including in its widest terms the areas of drama, physical theatre, dance, circus, street theatre, musical theatre and opera.

Ulster Youth Choir

Ulster Youth Choir was established in 1999 to provide the best of Northern Ireland’s young singers aged 14-24 with the opportunity to sing together to the highest possible standards receiving training from some of the best choral and vocal practitioners from throughout the UK and Ireland and is now regarded as one of Northern Ireland’s leading artistic and educational organisations.