Madam, - I have followed with interest Quentin Fottrell's opinions and observations on Fairytale of Kathmandu in both the print media and on RTÉ's The View, particularly his identification of the issue of power in the film. I read his article in your edition of March 18th with equal interest, but on this occasion his parallel analysis of power and the exploitation in Fairytale of Kathmandu, Pavee Lackeen and the publication Mapping Lives Exploring Futures is an unsound and unfair one.
Mapping Lives Exploring Futures was a visual arts project that ran over six years. It was a partnership between three community-based youth projects in Rialto, Bluebell and Inchicore, Common Ground, a local arts organisation, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. It was not a sole outreach programme of IMMA. It offered 61 children and young people an opportunity to engage voluntarily in a long-term visual arts programme supported by skilled, professional youth workers and artists within their own community.
Some of the children in the project were identified as being at risk of leaving school early. The early school-leaving rates in those three areas of south-west Dublin are the highest in Ireland. The project sought in some small way to change that statistic. Is there something wrong in an active, creative, locally-based response to that issue? What is wrong in celebrating your artistic and cultural achievements and rights as a child and young person in and with your own community, with your peers and families - all taking place outside a formal school setting that often alienates and fails you?
The positive outcomes are that some of the young people who participated in the project are now 18 years old, still engaging voluntarily in visual arts with their local youth project. Some have chosen to stay in school. Last year one group fundraised for two arts programme exchange visits to the US and they continue to collaborate with different artists. That is evidence of their power and choice.
For the record, the project had to continually raise funds. Most of its funds came from the Irish Youth Foundation and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
My question is: can Ireland deny there is a dominant culture permeating many levels of our society that limits our citizens' cultural rights and entitlements on so many different levels? Let's have a debate on how we can challenge and change that. - Yours, etc,
SIOBHÁN GEOGHEGAN, Director of Artistic Programme, The Common Ground, Inchicore, Dublin 8.