The Cultural Compass project is an exciting new initiative that is currently being developed through Donegal County Developments Boards Cultural Development Forum. This project sets out to strategically assess the needs of the entire cultural sector in County Donegal by determining ’How cultural infrastructure is and will continue to contribute to the unique culture and way of life in County Donegal.’
The definition of culture is broad and includes different cultural providers, cultural practitioners, cultural facilities and community and voluntary groups with cultural remits who provide their services across at least 20 different types of art forms within the county. Therefore the project uses a range of approaches to capture and articulate these strategic development needs by:
- Hosting a series of themed workshops (music, visual arts, drama and theatre, literature, language, heritage) for cultural practitioners
- Circulating a cultural service provider’s questionnaire to over 500 facilities, providers and practitioners
- Holding 50 interviews with cultural providers and facilities across the county
- Developing and producing a series of cultural maps and directories by geography and art form to identify gaps or overlaps in cultural infrastructure in the county.
Phase I of the project, funded by the European Union’s Peace II programme, has enabled quantitative and qualitative data to be compiled during 2007 as above. The next Phase will comprise analysis of the data, and making recommendations based on the results. The next task for the Cultural Development Forum will be to seek ways to put these recommendations into practice. Phase II is expected to commence in early 2008.
2nd Draft of Cultural Compass (Material for Cultural Forum)