The Model and RehabCare Sligo are currently in their forth year of partnership.  This unique collaboration has led to the formation of Touch the Sky Performance Group.  The group are currently working off::site in St Anne’s Community Centre and the MCR Community Centre, Sligo.

Under the artistic direction of Declan Drohan, the group devise performances in response to The Model’s visual and performance programme.

Exhibitions including Patti Smaith:Drawings and Photographs and The Eternal Now have been a key influence in the development of the core artistic material for performance.  They have also collaborated with one of Ireland’s leading contemporary sound artists Karl Burke.

As part of the Omagh Sligo Joint Cultural Events Project, Touch The Sky Performance Group were specially commissioned to deliver a day of interactive performances and workshops,  which includes a new performance of Sleepwalk, an innovative peer led workshop for adults and young people with special needs and a seminar presentation focusing on the educational and advocacy potential of performance and drama.  This represents a new phase in the development of the Touch the Sky Project.

The Model and RehabCare Sligo are committed to the continued growth of the Touch the Sky Performance Group as emerging artists and see this work as a model practice, and key example of how partnership with the arts can lead to high quality art projects and challenge our perception of mainstream art practice.

In 2008, Touch The Sky Performance Group are devising new material, kick started as their response to the Andy Warhol/Factory exhibition at the Model. Emerging themes are the idea of art as work, celebrity culture, and how the gaze/presence of an onlooker actually changes the nature of artistic inquiry. The working title is '15 Minutes'.