Arts Over Borders 2018 Brochure

W E L C O M E
Welcome to Arts over Borders (Ireland’s presenting body for cross-border
arts festivals) & welcome to its 3rd Lughnasa FrielFest and 6th Happy Days:
Enniskillen International Beckett Festival.
Our bio-festival model is a bespoke format which takes its inspiration from
the genius of a single artist and is curated with a strong sense of place, both
rural & urban, throughout border communities and landscapes - what we
now call the northern literary lands.
Over three weekends in August (Gaelic, Lughnasa), this year’s projects
extend across six counties from Ballycastle in Co. Antrim to Portnoo in Co.
Donegal, from Omagh in Co. Tyrone to Magheroarty, from Derry-
Londonderry city to outside Blacklion in Co. Cavan and from Magilligan
in Co. Derry-Londonderry to Enniskillen in Co. Fermanagh, taking place
in underground caves, islands on a lake, beaches, the Walls of Derry, village
halls, cafes, arts centres, schools, a crypt, a roadside, a pier and a mountain!
First and foremost though our heightened site-specific experiences are
there to underpin the artist’s work.
For six years, we have presented festivals on Beckett, Friel and Wilde in
Ireland’s border counties but August 2018 will be our last festivals before
Brexit. And so we offer two experiential Beckett Border projects: Three (or
more) Billboards Outside Enniskillen & Sligo and Purgatorio: Walking for Waiting
for Godot in the Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Geopark.
We have chosen Homer's two great poetic epics to sit either side of the
border: the Odyssey being to Donegal - the county with Ireland's longest
coastline - as the Iliad, epic of all epics, is to Derry - the city with the longest
siege in British and Irish history.
We thank all our artists – local, national and international – our small but
resourceful compliment of staff, our ever supportive and enabling Board
of Trustees and all our courageous partners and funders.
Seán Doran & Liam Browne
Festival Curators-DoranBrowne
{www.artsoverborders.com}