Switching off and Being Creative: Design & Crafts Council Ireland collaboration with Healthy Ireland

Ireland’s craftspeople and makers are sharing their skills with homes and communities across the country inspired by the Government’s ‘Keep Well’ campaign. Nine creative projects have received Sláintecare funding as part of a collaboration between the Design & Crafts Council Ireland (DCCI) and Healthy Ireland. 

As part of the Government’s Plan for Living with Covid-19, the DCCI is focusing on the campaign’s strand ‘Switching off and Being Creative’. This programme encourages people at home to switch off, get creative and learn something new. It offers people of all ages and abilities an opportunity to engage with free creative activities that are all designed to promote wellbeing and resilience as the country copes with life under the Covid-19 restrictions.

Projects involving DCCI guilds, associations, networks and societies (GANS) are being developed between February and April. These include:

• Online workshops operated by the Irish Patchwork Society to teach people patchwork and quilting
• Members of the Irish Artist Blacksmiths Association are coming together to forge a bench that will be donated to a residential care unit
• Glass Society of Ireland members are collaborating on a giant glass quilt, ‘sewing together’ several individual glass patches, and hosting a series of online workshops
• Cork Craft & Design is running Zoom courses introducing people to the craft of wet felting
• Feltmakers Ireland are hosting online tutorials for members of the public, with participants contributing to a stained glass inspired felt piece to submit to the Evie and Us exhibition
• The Quilters Guild of Ireland is engaging with quilters, their friends and families to make quilts to benefit projects that support women and promote mental health
• Benchspace Cork CLG are hosting online workshops for children in which they will create their very own ‘Spoony’ characters out of wooden spoons.

For more details visit dcci.ie/keepwell