Tess Leak
Tess is an artist and musician who often collaborates with composers, dancers, poets and puppeteers. She has been working on the Arts for Health team since 2010, developing a multi-disciplinary approach to participation. In 2019 she collaborated with puppeteer Eoin Lynch, composer Justin Grounds, and participants in St. Joseph’s Unit, Bantry General Hospital to create Stories from the Well-Field. Funded by an Arts Council of Ireland Arts Participation Award, this interactive performance brought to life poems about enduring childhood friendships. Tess is a graduate of the Curious School of Puppetry in London and co-curator of the Museum of Miniature which completed a tour of 7 off-shore Islands in 2017 and The Museum of Making and Mending co-created with Arts for Health Participants. She plays the cello with the Vespertine Quintet.
‘I facilitate sessions in hospitals and day care centres that incorporate music, nature, conversation and poetry. Over the past five years on the Arts for Health Programme I have been taught so much by the participants I work with and sometimes these songs and stories end up in the poems we make collectively. Last year I learnt to play the autoharp which I now use to accompany the songs we sing during the sessions.’
Case studies:
I shall make for my own castle, 2015, installation detail, drawings on paper.
I shall make for my own castle, 2015, installation detail, score of collaboration with composer Justin Grounds.
Film still from no matter how loudly they growl, 2015, collaboration with sound recordist Tadhg O’Sullivan.