Jill Beardsworth – Winner of the 2020 RDS Taylor Art Award

IFTA-nominated filmmaker, Jill Beardsworth, is this year’s winner of the RDS Taylor Art Award worth €10,000. Jill’s winning work, About Being, which she completed while at GMIT, was created in collaboration with ‘That’s Life’, an award-winning arts and personal development programme for people with intellectual disabilities run by the Brothers of Charity in Galway city. Her work explores the individual identities of a group of adults with intellectual disability. Seven participants collaborated on exploring their own identities and were invited to sit in front of a film camera, to ‘be’ themselves without direction or intervention. One short film was created per participant to reflect an aspect of their personality, life experience, talent and aspiration and reflect something of their inner essence. The result is a moving and humanising insight to the lives of people often on the margin of society.

Speaking about the winning work, Chair of the judging panel, Patrick T. Murphy, Director of the RHA, said: “Jill Beardsworth creates compelling and profound portraits of our fellow citizens who grapple with everyday challenges. Her short films are stripped of any distraction and engage both the seater and the viewer in a space of intimate encounter. It is a remarkable and exquisitely achieved body of work”