Mary Hickson
Mary Hickson
Senior Associate Producer
Mary (she/her) is a Creative director and Producer who has been at the helm of such venues and projects as Cork Opera House, 37d03d Events, Sounds from a Safe Harbour Festival (SFSH), Eaux Claires Festival and MusicNOW Festival.
Mary is a Creative Director and Producer based in Cork, Ireland with a particular interest in music. She is the Director of 37d03d Events – an evolving community of artists who come together to collaborate in unique residency projects around the world, founded by Justin Vernon and Bryce & Aaron Dessner. Mary is also Director of the award-winning Sounds from a Safe Harbour Festival (SFSH) in Cork, as well as Eaux Claires and MusicNOW Festivals in the USA. She has worked closely with performers and artists such as Cillian Murphy, The National, Bon Iver, Feist, Jon Hopkins, Max Porter, Damien Rice, Crash Ensemble and many more in producing projects noted for their spontaneity and collaborative nature. Her passion as a producer and director lies in just those elements: collaboration and inclusion of all art forms to produce events that are unique for both artists and audiences alike. She is inspired by the artistic process, and seeks to provide artists with space, time and freedom to create new work, to incubate ideas and experiment to see what might happen. A notable moment in Hickson’s career saw her successfully transform the fiscal and creative health of Cork Opera House during her stewardship as CEO, from 2010 to 2015. Building its reputation as both a producing and receiving house and diversifying the programme to include all kinds of live performance. Current projects include All of This Unreal Time for Manchester International Festival with writer Max Porter, actor Cillian Murphy, film director Aoife McArdle and composers Bryce & Aaron Dessner and Jon Hopkins.
It’s not a festival, it’s something profound…. It’s incredible… — Laura Barton on Sounds from a Safe Harbour
We need our music to surprise us; we need our festivals to surprise us, this is not entertainment, this is a fucking spiritual thing. – Bon Iver on Sounds from a Safe Harbour
Hickson is also Creative Producer on Multitudes, Feist’s project of new songs, which will soon take up residency at the Kampnagel Festival in Hamburg for a series of unconventional, mould-breaking performances.
Hickson has also just completed a new project for Brightening Air in both Cork City and Botanic Gardens in Dublin entitled a city and a garden. These installations involved a series of artistic experiences presented through GPS technology with writers Danny Denton, Lisa McInerney, Louise Hegarty, Melatu Okorie and Gavin Corbett together with musicians Sean MacErlaine, Fish Go Deep, Quiet Club, Kate Ellis, Shahzad Ismaily, Sean O’Se, Tolu Makay and Dorothy Murphy (all brought to life by visual artist Deirdre Breen). Again, process and collaboration and spontaneity were to the fore in making this project something special.
Earlier this year, in a new collaboration with SFSH and Body & Soul, she directed a new film project (Eriu’s Threshold) involving many different artists including Eoin French (Talos), Robyn Byrne, Kate Ellis and others.
Finally, Mary is a Creative Partner of Crash Ensemble, Ireland’s leading contemporary music ensemble.
image:credits
1. ALL OF THIS UNREAL TIME at Manchester International Festival (2021)
2. MULTITUDES by Feist. Image credit: Goodchild Richardson (2021)
3. Bon Iver with Voice Effect Choir at Sounds from a Safe Harbour/Cork Opera House. Photo credit: Brid O’Donovan (2017)
Portfolio of Artists:
Lynnette Moran
Lynnette Moran
Senior Associate Producer
Director and Co-Founder
Lynnette is a Creative Director, Arts Producer and Festival Director specialising in Live Art, Theatre, Visual Art and Digital platforms; with distinct experience of producing collaborative and socially engaged arts practice and public art commissions.
Lynnette is Artistic Director and co-founder of field:arts – a creative production support organisation funded by Arts Council Ireland. It is here where she leads a vision to establish a central framework to enable independent contemporary Producers and Artists to access sustainable infrastructures and support, plan strategically and adopt best practice models. While practitioners can grow and contribute to a shared network of collective intelligence, experience and skill sets to think globally, make ambitious work and to reach new audiences. Founded in 2020, field:arts was an active response to the challenges faced by the independent sector; indicative of how Lynnette has shaped new opportunities, to protect and embolden Artists & the wider sector.
Lynnette is the founding Festival Director of Live Collision International Festival. Established in 2099, Live Collision is Ireland’s leading annual curated festival of Live Art presenting some of the most groundbreaking artists across contemporary culture. The 12th edition of the festival took place in April 2024 offering a succinct and deeply considered invitation to audiences to experience & engage across live performance, theatre, artworks, live installations, workshops and salons. The work presented in the festival connects live performance and the intersection of class, race, equality, displacement, climate and world ecologies. The festival presents artists of exceptional calibre – from seminal international artists making groundbreaking work across the globe, to Ireland’s most exciting next-generation of performance makers with work never before presented in Ireland.
Lynnette is one of four core members of ANU Productions since 2013. ANU are a multidisciplinary Irish production company that present award winning theatre, visual art and socially engaged artworks. ANU place the audience at the very centre of each production, creating an immersive live experience where audiences have agency and proximity to the fierce and mesmeric worlds establish with each production. Together they’ve created 48+ multi-award winning artworks across theatre, public art commissions, gallery installations and museum interpretations; growing a national & global reputation for excellence. In 2024, ANU have joined forces to present The Dead, a co-production between ANU and Landmark Productions, in association with MoLI taking place from Nov 2024 – Jan 2025.
Lynnette has a long-standing working relationship with Amanda Coogan and is currently presenting Possession by Amanda Coogan and composer Linda Buckley along with collaborators Alvean Jones, Lianne Quigley and the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf. Developed as part of ART:2023 – a Decade of Centenaries. A collaboration between the Arts Council and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.
Across Lynnette’s career she has founded several arts initiatives, curated many programmes and produced and developed over 160 independent artists in Ireland and beyond. Including Maia Nunes, Mufutau Yusuf, mouth to mouth (performance collective, London), Fast Track to Dance (audience development initiative with Dublin Dance Festival) and CAPP (Collaborative Art Partnership Programme) an unprecedented four year transnational partnership across six European countries and nine partner organisations co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union focusing on collaborative & socially engaged practice and commissions across Europe between (2014 – 2018) of which Lynnette was co-founder and Lead Producer. She is an alumni of SPACE (Supporting Performing Arts Circulation Europe), EFA (European Festivals Association), Dance LV & Noass, Riga and Atelier for Young Festival Directors in Ljubljana .
Lynnette began her career in London, cutting her teeth with some of the UK’s leading arts organisations including LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre), Bernie Grant Arts Centre and BAC (Battersea Arts Centre) where she developed her practice as a Creative Producer. She holds a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art and an MA in Performance Art from Goldsmiths College, London. Currently Board Member of Performing Arts Forum.
web:link
www.livecollision.com
Portfolio of Artists: