Broadcast on 23rd May 2016
On tonight’s episode of Inside Culture we discuss the recent campaign for a separate Arts Department, watch a fictional film about Roger Casement, find out the benefit of integrating art into healthcare and explore the music room in our brain.
Presenter Fionn Davenport speaks to Minister Heather Humphries about the recent campaign to create a singular and dedicated Arts Department. We explore art and children’s health with the Cloudlands project, hear about how music works on our brain, and visit a new fictional biopic and art project by Simon Fujiwara on Roger Casement.
Heather Humphries, Minister of the newly configured Department of Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts and the Gaeltacht, is on the show to discuss her new brief. She is followed by a discussion with Jo Mangan of the National Campaign for the Arts (NCFA) and Pat Cooke, director of the MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management in University College Dublin (UCD). They talk about the campaign to reinstate the Department of Arts, Culture and Heritage, as well as funding issues in the arts sector.
Simon Fujiwara is a British/Japanese artist, currently based in Berlin and he talks to us about his new work Roger Casement: The Humanizer. This new exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin imagines the life of Sir Roger Casement as a big screen biopic. The Humanizer runs at IMMA until 28 August. Visit imma.ie for more information.
How do we perceive music? We explore the music room in our brain by chatting to Kevin Mitchell, professor of neurogenetics in Trinity College Dublin. We also hear from Dr Sam Norman Haignere, who is looking into this very subject in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. Finally, professional pianist Svetlana Rudenko who has synaesthesia gives us a glimpse of what it is like to perceive music differently.
Cloudlands is an art project run by Helium, the children’s arts and health organisation. It was devised by artists Rachel Tynan and Eszter Némethi in collaboration with young hospital patients. It is completing a nationwide tour and a short film of the project was made by Siobhán Perry. Rachel and Eszter meet Fionn at the Dublin installation of the work to discuss their involvement on the project and they are joined by Dr Emma Curtis, medical director of the Paediatric Hospital Development Board. Visit artsandhealth.ie to find out more.
