2025 in Review

2025 was a year filled with professional development opportunities, artist advisory supports, awards, bursaries, public events and more.

We piloted a new Collaborative Arts Training Programme – read more below – as well as launching our newly redesigned Reading Room and Archive, which offers a unique space for all those interested in collaborative arts both nationally and internationally, currently and historically.

To all our colleagues, key stakeholders and project partners – we say a sincere thank you for your work with us over the last year. We are thankful for the work done by committed, enthusiastic socially engaged and collaborative artists and community members, who we are proud to support.

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 2025.

Spring

We kicked off the year with Artist in the Community Scheme information sessions, both in person and online. 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.

On St Patrick’s Day 2025, Create were privileged to join artists working in the collaborative arts field to celebrate President Michael D. Higgins’ ‘Samhlaíocht agus An Náisiún – Imagination and The Nation‘ initiative in Áras an Uachtaráin. Create was honoured to support the team at Áras an Uachtaráin in preparing for the event, and our Director, Damien McGlynn, presented the President with copies of some archival material on the beginnings of Create – as C.A.F.E. (Creative Activity for Everyone) – including photos from the first national seminar of C.A.F.E. in April 1984, at which President Higgins was chair.

We were delighted, with the support of the British Council, to send artists William Bock, Abi Ighodaro and Helen O’Keefe to London in April to attend The British East India Company on Trial, a collaboration between academic, writer, lawyer and activist Radha D’Souza and artist and propaganda researcher Jonas Staal. This trial was part of the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC), which stages public hearings in immersive installations functioning as a court, to prosecute intergenerational climate crimes committed by states and corporations acting together.

Summer

On the 6th May 2025, we welcomed artists, academics, partners organisations, members of our board and more, to launch our new Reading Room and Archive. This evening was both the culmination of a large-scale refurbishment project, and the beginning of a newly enhanced resource for the sector. The project, designed by Plattenbau Studio and constructed by Spaceforms, provides for both an enhanced Reading Room experience with both shared and private work spaces and audiovisual capacity, as well as a new Archive room with support for high-resolution scanning. This project was part funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media. The Reading Room is now open for bookings for groups and private research. In recent years, Create’s Research and Learning Manager, Jennifer Fitzgibbon, has expanded both the library collection and the research associated with the institutional archive and holdings, alongside redeveloping the physical space. In issue #38 of Create News, Jennifer shares her perspective on Create’s history and future as reflected in the shelves.

Later that month we held the first public workshop in the new Reading room, entitled Resistance is a Visual Language. US-based artist Joshua MacPhee worked with attendees to discuss “resistance as a language” and how to use it to create political posters, examining key concepts including iteration as creative engine and political graphics as enduring design.

In Autumn we welcomed Vanessa Daws to the Reading Room, as the recipient of the Dr Ailbhe Murphy Research Residency.  Vanessa will use this Research Residency to explore our relationship to the water that surrounds us and the creatures in it, from a swimmer’s point of view, connecting with the Dublin Bay Biosphere.  The Research Residency, part funded by the Arts Council of Ireland, is in honour and remembrance of our former Director, Dr. Ailbhe Murphy, who sadly passed away in May 2024. Ailbhe’s commitment to supporting collaborative arts practitioners and to deep and rigorous research have inspired this award.

We consistently hear from artists and community members that conflict resolution and working sustainably with difference is an area of anxiety. In order to further explore this important issue, we invited Dr Eve Olney, socially engaged artist, activist, curator, educator and practice-based researcher to share some of her own experiences of collaborative work, addressing them in terms of identifying common issues that arise during social practice, and which frameworks and processes can be used to deal with difference, diversity and conflict in this work. You can read the full issue of Create News #37 here.

Over the Summer we held a series of events across the country and online, inviting artists, arts workers, community and charity sector representatives, researchers, activists, arts managers and more to contribute to our new strategy. These sessions focused on current experiences of collaborative arts practice, and where Create may be able to support artists further. We are grateful to everyone who attended an event and contributed their experiences. We look forward to launching our new Strategy in 2026.

In June we offered another CPD event entitled Producing in a Collaborative Context, with Kath Gorman.  Led by experienced producer Kath Gorman of Promenade, the workshop examined the roles and responsibilities and what producers do in the collaborative arts space, the key skills and qualities needed as a producer for developing collaborative projects, and the differences between producing events and collaborative projects.  Kath also led participants through the nuts and bolts of producing, such as how to get a project idea off the ground, budgeting, best practice in building and managing relationships with communities as well as sourcing potential partners, providing case studies and real life examples from her years as a producer.

This Summer we announced multiple award recipients, including the Artist in the Community Scheme Round One Awards. We offer a full suite of support for artists engaging with the AIC Scheme, including additional access supports for applicants and recipients.

We were delighted to announce Obinna Michael Imo as the recipient of the Create and Fire Station Artists’ Studios 2025 Catalyst Residency Award. Obinna Michael Imo is a self-taught visual artist, graphic designer, clothing and digital designer originally from Nigeria and living in Dublin. His current work explores the power of art to engage and uplift communities, particularly the marginalised and those who may not identify as artists themselves. The residency offers Obinna Michael the opportunity to be mentored by a range of practitioners, to immerse himself in a dedicated period of reflection, mentoring, peer-to-peer conversation and strategic networking.

The Artist Mentoring Award aims to offer capacity building and arts practice development for collaborative socially engaged artists, and artists who are transitioning into this field. For the five selected artists, the award offers an eight-month period of capacity building and arts practice development through dialogue with an experienced collaborative socially engaged artist mentor.

Autumn

In September, we announced Tobi Bello and Niall O Baoill as the recipients of the 2025 Artist in the Community Scheme Bursaries. 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 of place or interest 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.

Later that month we launched NEIC Community Arts Programme Research and Development Funding. These awards of €5,000 are designed to support artists and creative practitioners living or working in the North East Inner City of Dublin to explore new ideas and develop meaningful relationships with local communities. We look forward to supporting the successful applicants as they enact this work in the coming months.

In October we were excited to launch our new Collaborative Arts Training Programme. This is a practical suite of essential training and professional knowledge for emerging artists, recent graduates and third-level students as well as artists and cultural practitioners who are interested in learning more about the basics of collaborative art practice. This year we offered a pilot of the programme, featuring presentations on Demystifying Collaborative Art with guest artist Anthony Haughey; Effectively Communicating your Practice with guest artist Alan James Burns; Building Sustainable Work Patterns with guest artist John Conway, and People, Ethics and Communities with guest artist Evelyn Broderick.

As part of the NEIC Community Arts Programme we launched In the Making: October in the NEIC, a month-long series of events showcasing the creativity of local communities. This included Building Sustainable Partnerships in Collaborative Art, a discussion exploring what makes partnerships between artists, community organisations, and participants truly sustainable. Artist Evelyn Broderick, community worker and activist Paula Kearney, and Fiona O’Neill from Create shared insights into the challenges, rewards, and practicalities of collaborative art. We also offered ‘In the Noise of the Dark Day’, a hands-on zine-making workshop with artist Niamh Flanagan where participants explored personal and collective narratives through collage, drawing, and text. At Fishamble x Larkin Community College, playwright, actor, and activist Emmet Kirwan joined students from Larkin Community College for an engaging fireside chat and restorative circle. We closed out the month with a Walking Tour with Terry Fagan, a specially commissioned guided walk with local historian Terry Fagan highlighting local events, layered histories, and hidden stories. Participants were prompted to reflect on whose stories are preserved, who gets to tell them, and the power dynamics that shape collective memory.

Winter

Create’s National Networking Event is a unique opportunity for those working in the field to meet with like-minded peers, to share and network, and learn from each other as well as leading voices in the field.

The title of this year’s event, held in November in the F2 Centre, Rialto, was Collaborative Futures. The Networking Event examined how we can look to our history to gain lessons for the future of collaborative, socially engaged art practice, building hope through togetherness, community as activism and building movements through collaboration.

Over the past few months our Director, Damien McGlynn, has taken part in the Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts Fellowship, which runs to November 2026.The Alliance for Socially Engaged Arts Fellowship is a transformative programme designed to connect and support visionary leaders of arts organisations driven by community engagement and social change across Europe. The programme brings together 15 leaders working across diverse artistic disciplines and societal issues, who will work together to overcome challenges, share experiences and create innovative solutions that create greater impact within their local communities and the wider arts sector in Europe. Watch this short film which outlines what the Fellows have been working on this year.

We are thankful to all applicants to the AIC Scheme in 2025, and everyone who contributes to panels, information sessions, to our mentoring panel and more. We announced the recipients of Round Two of the AIC Scheme awards in December. Eight Research and Development awards (without mentoring), four Research and Development Awards (with mentoring), and four Project Realisation Awards were funded. This was a competitive round, and we are thankful to each applicant to the scheme for their passion for collaborative arts practice.

We rounded out the year with the announcement of the NEIC R&D award recipients. The Research and Development Awards, valued at €5,000 each, are designed to support artists and creative practitioners living or working in the NEIC to explore new ideas and develop meaningful relationships with local communities. This award recognises bold, brilliant ideas rooted in the community. We look forward to supporting the five successful projects in 2026.