Applications sought: Arts and Cultural Engagement Officer with Irish Hospice Foundation

The Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF) is seeking to engage the services of a suitably qualified and experienced individual to undertake an eight-month fixed term contract as Arts and Cultural Engagement Officer.

Project Role
The main objective of the role is to use the power of the arts to help connect organisations, providers and citizens to manage the difficult topics of dying, death, care and loss felt widely by society.

• The Officer will manage and create a bespoke programme of events to remember and reflect on dying, death and bereavement. This will include managing seed grants for community responses to dying, death, loss and grief, and the production of a poetry book with illustrations / photography.
• The Officer will help create opportunities for people to talk about and plan ahead for ill health and death using the many different aspects of the arts to create, manage and maintain active dialogue and reflection.

Context
Irish Hospice Foundation is one of the seven organisations awarded funding under the Government’s new Creativity in Older Age programme which will be delivered by Creative Ireland over the next 18 months.

In recent times, Covid-19 has motivated communities to come together with compassion and care to help and support each other. The pandemic has also magnified people’s experiences of dying, death, loss and grief. In a time when the arts itself has been deeply impacted, Covid-19 has also demonstrated how much we all rely on the arts, culture and creative responses for meaning, solace and inspiration. The experiences of Covid-19 have generated new possibilities and potential for engaging people in Ireland in meaningful dialogue around dying, death, grief and loss through the medium of the arts.

Particulars 

• Eight month (four-day week) fixed term contract
• The role should commence by September 2020 and be completed by April 2021 with an interim report to be submitted in early January. (These dates may be reviewed if any unavoidable delays occur due to the current health crisis.)

Deadline 
Closing Date: 10 August 2020
Applicants will be shortlisted on the basis of their submissions.
Shortlisted applicants may be called to interview (online) 18/19 August.

Application process 
Download the full brief:
www.artsandhealth.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Arts-Officer-position-Job-Description-Irish-Hospice-Foundation-July-2020.pdf

hospicefoundation.ie