First Fortnight 2023

First Fortnight returns in 2023 from January 6th to January 15th. As CEO I am delighted to be celebrating my second festival with everyone.

We are looking forward to spending time with our audience enjoying the work of some extraordinary artists who alongside First Fortnight, are striving to end the stigma attached to mental ill health.

Each year First Fortnight offers an opportunity to start your year on an artistic high. We offer a cultural oasis in the month of January. While we cannot ignore the difficulties that artists and audiences have experienced in recent times, we want to take a moment to come together, to pause and celebrate the arts.

This year we are bringing you occasions to gather with friends, family and strangers to participate, immerse, observe or appreciate from a distance the remarkable vision of artists from multiple artistic disciplines.

We have an exciting commission this year in First Fortnight as we work with Electronic Sheep. Visual artists Helen Delany and Brenda Aherne who are the artists behind Electronic Sheep, have created a new Tapestry artwork ‘Notifications Off’, which aims to open up a conversation around mental health awareness. This knitted Tapestry focuses on the positive and is a colourful, fun, joyous, surreal art piece.

The work weaves in a range of people including artists and cultural figures who have kindly contributed to its creation – Gavin Friday, Róisín Murphy, Aisling Bea, Ben, Tomoka and Bamboo Westwood, Vince Power, Dylan Philips and Laura Whitmore. A year in the making, the textile is a hybrid of pencil/digital drawings executed in the artists’ signature style. Commissioned by First Fortnight and the Arts Council of Ireland it will launch at The Project Arts Centre as part of the First Fortnight Festival.

At First Fortnight, we honour the healing power of the arts, and in 2023 we particularly want to focus on hope. Hope for better times and hope for an end to mental health stigma. That is our reason for partnering with the Engagement and Recovery Office in the HSE in presenting A Celebration of Hope on January 6th Nollaig na mBan. We would love you to join us to celebrate the progress made in tackling the stigma associated with mental ill health, celebrate all those who have struggled and found support for their mental health, and celebrate those who work to support and empower others.

Erica Cody, host of RTÉ’s ‘The Main Stage’ headlines this event. In the past, Erica has generously shared her story of moving through dark times. She hopes that sharing her experience will help others, which she reflects on in her EP Love & Light. Erica will be joined by Barbara Brennan, co-ordinator of See Change who has inspired so many by sharing her lived experience of overcoming difficult times. Sharing the stage also is Robert Grace. His hit Fake Fine achieved platinum status and summed up the year that was 2020 perfectly.

Through a variety of events across the ten days of the festival we will be exploring positive advances in attitudes to mental health, tools for finding recovery from mental ill health and support available for those currently experiencing mental ill health. There will always be challenges but every now and again it is good to take stock, see the progress being made, focus on the positive and strive for better outcomes.

If you are a fan of theatre or the GAA or both, we’ve a treat in store for you. ‘Spliced’ by Timmy Creed, plays the Show Court at the new National Handball and Community centre at Croke Park, the home of the GAA. Honest, brave, joyous, witty and hard-hitting, Spliced is a love song to the GAA. Timmy Creed plays hurling, the fastest field sport in the world. He loves it, he hates it. For better or worse, it’s a part of him. Spliced is a visceral account of his struggle to become an individual outside of the sporting institution that raised him. He wants to talk about identity, masculinity and mental health in a sport context.

It impossible to share here all the wonderful events so I would encourage you to take the time to check out FirstFortnight.ie and search through the programme. There truly is something for everyone in this year’s festival programme. I look forward to seeing you all across January 6th to 15th and hearing your stories of hope. Take the time this January to gather together in solidarity and compassion and continue to strive for improvements around stigma reduction.

Come dance, write, draw, speak, listen and watch at First Fortnight 2023. I can guarantee you will enjoy it and feel the better for it.

Explore the programme here.