2024 in Review

We are delighted to continue to support the work of collaborative and socially engaged artists and to advocate for the practice. Don’t forget that you can support us with a one-off or recurring donation, here.

Here’s just a selection of our activities in 2024.

January & February

We began the year with multiple information sessions in January and February, including one with the Arts Council’s Arts Participation Team and Arts and Disability Ireland. These information sessions are all about answering questions applicants might have about applying to the AIC Scheme and other opportunities. They’re also about sharing experience of developing and delivering a collaborative project. The sessions are open to artists and community organisation interested in the Artist in the Community Scheme. You can always find out about upcoming information sessions on our events page.

March

In March, we shared a case study by previous AIC Scheme recipient Catarina Araújo. Cocooning: Catch a Breath (2021-2023) was a participatory-led, collaborative, and socially engaged art project co-created by visual artist Catarina Araújo and a group of mental health professionals. It aimed to understand the impacts of Covid-19 on the professional’s lives. The project evolved through an ethos of trust, addressing overlooked needs and fostering a sense of community, connection, and solidarity from a humanistic perspective.

We also welcomed Christopher Bailey, Arts and Health Lead for the World Health Organisation, to Tuam in March. This visit, which brought Christopher to projects in Cork, Limerick and Galway, was part of Creative Brain week. Collectively, we shared songs, poems and stories that helped to highlight the incredible difference that engagement with arts and culture makes to the health and wellbeing of a whole community.

We hosted a gathering of representatives from each of the Arts Council’s Creative Places across Ireland in March. It was such a pleasure to welcome arts administrators, artists and more to West Cork for a rich couple of days of learning, sharing and planning, as part of our Network Services offerings.

April

In April we hosted a CPD workshop entitled Planning, Printmaking and Publishing for the People. Drawing on their transdisciplinary approaches to art and activism, gender-based violence activist Mpho Mokotso and socially engaged artist Kate O’ Shea jointly delivered a workshop drawing on core philosophies of planning, printmaking, and publishing for the people. We look forward to sharing more about this work in 2025, part of our Sharing Practice outputs.

April also saw the publishing of Issue 35 of Create News, which features some select reflections on the state of socially engaged art education, from our colleagues from SPCUNY (Social Practice, City University New York), who we invited to contribute to this publication alongside those involved in the new MA/MFA Art and Social Action at NCAD, in which Create is a partner.

April was a busy month for events in Create! We were proud to be part of ‘Eascair’, a cultural event celebrating the contribution of Afro-Irish artists to Ireland’s rich cultural scene, with a focus on people of the African diaspora in the arts, led by dance artists and collaborative practitioners Tobi Balogun and Karen Aguiar. This event showcased contemporary work in multiple art forms, featuring film screenings, an exhibition, and food sharing as well as in-depth conversations focusing on collaborations and how traditions are carried through the community and into new contemporary forms and spaces.

May

In May, in partnership with Counterpoints Arts, we held a Learning Lab: Stories of Collaborative Leadership and Social Change. We invited participating artists Tobi Balogun, John Conway, Cathy Coughlan, Jijo Sebastian, Silvina Sisterna, Steph Saidha and Tatiana dos Santos to learn and unlearn together, through the values of conviviality and mutual care; to explore what leadership might look like in a committed collaborative context.

Also in May, we announced Fatoumata Gandega as the recipient of the 2024 Catalyst Residency Award, offered in partnership with Fire Station Artists’ Studios. Fatoumata Gandega is a multidisciplinary artist who focuses her craft on the sense of belonging from the Black and Brown immigrant experience in Occident. Through her work, she aims to amplify marginalised voices by exploring intersectional identities and community empowerment.

In 2024, we marked the final months of the Creative Places Tuam Pilot programme, which began in January 2020. This initiative has been a testament to the creativity, resilience, and spirit of Tuam residents. Over two days in May, we shared and built the archive together with Tuam locals, and formally handed over the Creative Places Tuam Pilot archive to the library, where it will be publicly accessible. We continue to work on phase two of the programme, with a strong team of collaborative artists, arts administrators and community development workers in Tuam.

June

We published a case study written by Keith Payne, previous AIC Scheme recipient. Tales My Granny Told Me collected stories from around the world brought to Ireland by International Protection Applicants. Stories, and song, were collected on-site at the Lissywollen Direct Provision Centre, Athlone and were recorded and broadcast over the summer of 2022 on Athlone Community Radio. Tales my Granny Told me is a local project with a national impact.

In June, we hosted our seventh Summer School in partnership with Counterpoints Arts. The 2024 Summer School on Collaborative Practice and Social Change focused on the importance of countering disinformation and false narratives through mobilisation of socially engaged practice; combining participation and collaboration across diverse communities, with the storytelling and reporting skills of investigative journalism and digital activism.

July

We were delighted to announce the recipients of the 2024 Artist Mentoring Award during the Summer. This award offers an eight-month period of capacity building and arts practice development for five artists, through dialogue with an experienced collaborative socially engaged artist mentor. All mentors and mentees will explore central elements of collaborative socially engaged practice, including collaborative methodologies, outreach, sustaining relationships with communities, evaluation, and more.

August

In August we hosted Making Odd-Kin with LennonTaylor. Climate change is a systemic set of predicaments, which call on all disciplines, forms of knowledge and bearers of knowledge to work together. This workshop, held at the KinShip project in Tramore Valley Park, Co. Cork, acted as an exchange of thoughts, ideas and actions, for socially engaged artists and those from other related sectors who are interested in the call for creative social interactions.

September

September saw the publishing of the first of our Sharing Practice series, which is intended to showcase collaborative, socially engaged work in all its complexities. Figures of Eight was a live performance process and moving performance made collaboratively with Fatima Groups United and artist Veronica Dyas in 2023. The project interrogated the current state of Dublin 8 in relation to accommodation, gentrification and biodiversity, and was produced by Project Arts Centre and funded through the Arts Council’s Artist in the Community Scheme Project Realisation Award managed by Create. This publication features an essay by Veronica Dyas alongside perspectives from her collaborators.

In September we attended the launch of The Forest That Won’t Forget, a national public artwork dedicated to the women and families across Ireland affected by the failures of the CervicalCheck programme. This living, breathing public artwork is an anti-monument that publicly acknowledges a major historic injustice in women’s healthcare. In 2021, artists Fiona Whelan and John Conway were commissioned by 221+ to lead a nationwide art project to respond to the complex lived experiences of women and families unjustly failed by the HSE’s CervicalCheck Screening Programme. Create is pleased to have offered advice and guidance to the artists during early stages of the project.

We also launched the publication What is an Island? Towards a Patchwork Pedagogy for a World Archipelago, at the Earth Rising Festival held by IMMA. The What is an Island? project was initiated in 2018 by artist and educator Glenn Loughran (TU Dublin / GradCAM) in collaboration with Uillinn director Ann Davoren and former director of Create, Ailbhe Murphy. Developed at the height of the Brexit negotiations, the project set out to explore the significance of islands and island imaginaries in art and education at a time of social, environmental and technological change. What is an Island? Towards a Patchwork Pedagogy for a World Archipelago captures the project, through the Covid 19 pandemic and the emergence of the metaverse, through community, friendship, loss, and recovery.

October

We were pleased to publish Issue 36 of Create News, Abundant Futures: Building Equity in a Divided World, in October. Create’s work has always been to support artists, academics and activists working in community contexts to tackle important social issues. While the principles of this work remain largely the same, the context in which it takes place is ever-evolving. We invited artist Dana Olărescu to reflect on the contemporary issues of divisive information and the division of communities and to discuss how collaborative socially engaged artists can navigate these challenges in their work.

Also in October, we were delighted to announce Daniel Brennan and Lauryn McNamee as recipients of the AIC Scheme Bursary Award 2024. The purpose of the bursary award is to support and nurture professional arts practice, for an artist in any art-form who has a track record of working collaboratively with communities in the making and interpreting of art. This is a developmental bursary aimed at practitioners who are facing particular barriers and/or challenges in developing their collaborative socially engaged arts practice. For the first time, we partnered with thirteen civil society organisations who align with our work and the purpose of the Bursary, to support us and the recipients during the bursary.

November

In November we saw the launch of Salmagundi: The Project, at the Hugh Lane Gallery. Filmmaker Jijo Sebastian was awarded the Create and Hugh Lane Gallery commission in 2022 for his proposal to foster transcultural understanding, community building and the exploration of the complexities of migrant identities through a collaborative filmmaking process. Under the name Salmagundi, a diverse group of individuals from Dublin’s North inner City came together to develop, write and perform a feature-length film. The film reflects themes and issues central to the participants’ lived experience, celebrating a collective voice that underscores the power of community across cultures. The resulting film and process room can be seen in the Hugh Lane Gallery until the 5th January 2025.

Create’s annual networking event brings together those working in or entering the field of collaborative, socially engaged art. This year we partnered with Leitrim County Council Arts Office and Cork City Council Arts Office to offer the event as part of a two-day conference on socially engaged practice. We welcomed artists, researchers, community group representatives, activists, arts managers and more to a sold out event at The Dock Arts Centre, Carrick on Shannon, Co. Leitrim.  We want to send a massive thank you to everyone who attended; contributions from attendees were insightful, generous, and backed up by real on the ground experience. Special thanks to our speakers and workshop facilitators who provided everyone much food for thought.

Create and Radical Institute (founding members: Eve Olney and Krini Kafiris) were delighted to present Addressing Difference and Conflict in Creative Collaborations in November, a one-day workshop which drew from Eve’s work on sustainable organising practices in collaborative and participatory processes, with a focus on addressing difference and conflict in creative collective work.

December

We seek a Chair of our Board of Trustees! The board currently has eight members, with recent recruitment providing a strong diversity of skills, experience and backgrounds and stability of membership in the coming years. We now seek a chair for this board, whose key responsibilities will be to work closely with the Director in leading the strategic direction of the organisation, maintaining regular contact with the Director on significant issues, and ensuring that the whole Board is properly informed and supported to fulfil its role and responsibilities. The chair will act as a strong representative for Create, advocating and championing its work, both nationally and internationally.

Congratulations to all recipients of the Artist in the Community Scheme awards this year. 37 artists or projects were directly supported through awards, bursaries, and a residency with Fire Station Artists’ Studios, with more than €250,000 distributed, as well as mentorship, residency facilities and other in-kind supports. You can keep up to date with the award recipients on our website. We look forward to continuing to support the successful artists and communities in 2025.

Create processed close to 3,500 individual vetting applications this year alone, supporting the provision of arts activities to young and vulnerable people across Ireland.

Throughout the year we continue to work with sectoral partners through membership in organisations such as Coalition 2030, the Social Art Educators’ Forum, INAR and more. These meetings take place regularly, and inform our work and advocacy for the field of Collaborative Arts. We believe in supporting artists at all stages of their careers, and we work with third level educators  each year to facilitate students’ experience in collaborative practice, in particular via the NCAD Studio+ Dublin 8 Neighbourhood Residency Programme, and the NCAD MA/MFA in Art and Social Action.

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As a team, we were deeply saddened by the passing of our former Director Dr Ailbhe Murphy. Ailbhe led the organisation from 2015 to 2022, during that time helming the creation of our 2020 – 2025 Strategy, Connect Create Change. She truly practiced the art of collaboration in her work and made a deep and lasting impact on those who had the privilege of working with her. We continue to send our condolences and thoughts to Ailbhe’s partner Ciaran and son Luke, as well as her extended family, friends, and all those affected by this profound loss. As an organisation, we are committed to honouring Ailbhe’s legacy and will soon announce a new opportunity that will support an artist in a way that brings together the themes that defined Ailbhe’s work over her career.

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Our work would not be possible without the support of our funders, the Arts Council, Dublin City Council, and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. We also wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to all partners who have worked with us during the year and our dedicated board members, as well, of course, as the committed socially engaged and collaborative artists and community members, who we are proud to support and work with on a daily basis.