Garrett Keogh
Garrett is the Co-founder and director of The Gap Arts Festival. Since 2011 this non-profit, artist- and community-based, annual multi-discipline festival has presented a weekend of theatre, film, music, dance, art, spectacle, as well as longer participative workshops.
There is no village, no crossroads, no theatre venue, but every year the Festival has adapted venues indoors and out, and brought professional theatre and art to this community of place in the hills of north Wexford where professional theatre was last seen when the fit-ups pitched their tent in a field in the 1950s. The festival supports artists by providing technical equipment and commissioning new work; in music, film, photography, outdoor art, theatre and short story writing, often in Irish and English.
Please tell us about the project you want to develop through the training:
“Awarded the EFFE Label as ‘a unique festival’ by the European Festivals Association, with particular reference to the festival’s successful arts participation elements, and nominated for European Rural Inspiration Award 2019 for its Community Portrait Photographic Project, the Gap Arts Festival brings the arts to parts they wouldn't otherwise reach. Supported by, among others, the Arts Council, Wexford County Council, Foras na Gaeilge, and through local sponsorship, the festival's development has been very organic - responding to and challenging the appetite for the arts in the community. While our audiences and artists come from both within and without the region, our ambition is to offer the best range of artistic engagements rather than 'grow' in size and duration. Because of this, our location and our set-up, the festival doesn't fit into the the 'usual' funding nor development categories. We would use this course to explore ways to improve our service.
A range of past experiences, a variety of administrative skills, combined with established artistic practices, and a willing support network, from the local community association and school, to fork-lift tractors and builders' suppliers, have all been part of the enjoyable and successful learning curve in the last twelve festival years. This training now would help us to do it better, and let people know about it.”