Research
David Teevan PhD
As an academic researcher my focus is on the social, cultural and political impact and import of community arts and arts festivals. Using ethnographic methodologies my research is framed within an arts management and cultural policy perspective.
Over the last ten years, I have been a regular lecturer on arts management and cultural policy Masters courses at Birkbeck University of London, University of Limerick, Queen’s University Belfast and University College Dublin. I am currently engaged by University of Galway as a lecturer for the MA in Creative Arts, Producing and Curation.
I am a member of Brokering International Exchange for whom I co-founded the monthly BIE Co-Learning Lab, which ran during 2021 and 2022.
PhD Dissertation
In March 2020, I was awarded a PhD by University College Dublin for my dissertation (En)acting Democracy: practice and policy in contemporary Irish collaborative art, which examined the work of a number of artists and arts organisations that engage in durational dialogical art projects that invite community participants to co-create and co-author aesthetically ambitious performative outcomes. Central to the work was an in depth study of the history of community arts in Ireland and the arts policy context within which it has developed.
The dissertation is as yet unpublished but available upon request.
Research publications
My recent research has focused on operational and artistic innovations initiated by Irish arts festivals to sustain a connection to the public during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Publications from this research include:
Irish Arts Festival Archive (IAFA)
I was one of the co-founder’s of the Irish Arts Festival Archive (IAFA), which is part of the UCD Cultural Heritage Collections, held in UCD Library. IAFA aims to capture and preserve the rich and diverse landscape of festivals held across Ireland.
In 2021, I initiated the IAFA Oral History Project, to record interviews with the founding members of archived festivals. With funding from UCD Arts and Humanities, IAFA is publishing edited transcripts of these interviews.
The Arts Council Festival and Events Scheme review 2017
While working as Festival Advisor to The Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaoin, I undertook a review of the arts festival ecology in Ireland. The review, which was carried out in collaboration with the incoming Head of Festivals, Karl Wallace, included a comparative study of the supports provided to festivals in other similarly sized jurisdictions. The process culminated with the publication of Festival and Event Scheme Review 2017.
