NI Arts Council's largest ever investment in youth culture benefits the Nerve Centre.
The promotion of young people's creativity as one of the five key areas of the Northern Ireland Arts Council's new strategy offers a significant opportunity to bridge the divide between high art and popular culture. The Arts Council has already identified this barrier as one of the main reasons for public apathy towards the arts. Its effect on generations of young people has been to push their creative interests to the margins and curtail the space for cultural experimentation and collaboration across the artistic spectrum.
The Nerve Centre, based in Derry, was established over a decade ago to promote youth culture and creativity as a positive force within the arts. Their starting point was popular music and its central place in the lives of young people. The concept was to develop a vibrant cultural factory bringing together young musicians, film-makers, animators, sound-engineers and digital image-makers. Out of this fusion of energy and creative talent, it was hoped would come a number of exciting new artistic products which could demonstrate the value of youth culture. One area of popular culture which they are particularly interested in developing was animation as it is one of the most popular forms of entertainment for children and young people throughout the world and yet as an artistic medium it is virtually inaccessible in Northern Ireland. Animation is destined to be passively consumed, rather that created by young people, unless they can be provided with the skills and tools to produce their own moving images. The Nerve Centre's focus has been on re-imaging local history and mythology through animation - from their 1994 animated series, Cu Chulainn, for BBC NI to a series of animated short films produced by young people last year on historical and cultural events.
Some of the most adventurous developments in the arts are taking place at the boundaries of the new technologies: in multimedia and cyber-technology. The computer is a creative tool for composing music, editing video and photography, recording sound, animating images, designing graphics, sculpting 3-D models and painting pictures. It is a portable arts centre which can unlock creativity in the classroom, the youth club and the home. This is an important question for the future accessibility of all of the arts to everyone. The increased funding this year to the Nerve Centre is the Arts Council's largest ever investment in youth culture. Recognition has come for young people's creativity as a culturally significant force in this society and for the future role which it can play in challenging stereotypes and transforming attitudes to the arts amongst those who feel most excluded. The Arts Council and the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure have given the lead and it is hoped that other statutory providers will follow.
The Nerve Centre is developing a huge programme which allows young people access to all types of Digital training and is the most advanced centre in the field in Northern Ireland.
The Nerve Centre website is: www.nerve-centre.org.uk
DG
22-02-01
