Artist in the Community :  Fatima Groups United & Veronica Dyas 

Since January 2023, Fatima Groups United has been working with artist Veronica Dyas on a weekly basis to devise material for a new project. This site-specific work builds on a number of collaborative projects and initiatives with Fatima Groups United (FGU) that explore the local area and its rich cultural history.  

ABOUT THE PROJECT 

‘Intergenerational micro-histories gathered from the local community will form the basis of an ambitious new work, to be delivered as a series of performative protests. As a working-class community in the heart of Dublin city – a demographic that is increasingly under threat of extinction – we want to give a voice to those who are fighting to remain in the City Centre. On a daily basis we see our cultural life and green spaces decimated, housing replaced by hotels and student accommodation that our Young People can’t afford to live in, our Young People are  leaving, again. We want to galvanize our community and empower audiences to think creatively about how we can collectively reclaim our place and physically occupy public space.’ 

VERONICA DYAS | BIOG 

Veronica Dyas is an Artist working primarily through theatre, new text, and installation.  Facilitation, Action & LOVE are crucial to her practice. She works regularly with communities of identity, purpose, and/or place. She makes work to investigate contemporary living, acknowledging the visceral reality of past trauma while always focused towards healing. Rooted in her own lived experience, her work extends from the feminist declaration: the personal is the political. While studying Drama & Theatre Studies with Sociology at Trinity College Dublin, she began to fuse sociological tools within her arts practice; Reflexive Practice informs her methodologies. The intention to be authentic, allowing what’s there to be present in the space, and self-identifying as female, white, Irish, queer, and working-class, extending to more nuanced lived experiences when pertinent. This practice informs the process, enabling the potential for real relationships to develop within. Her underlying assumption is that we are beings of infinite potential, each and every one. She begins from a place of Equality, with the attempt to balance I Am free/I Am responsible continuously moving from the conceptual principle towards sustainable practices. She doesn’t always manage to hold that liminal ideological space, it’s an ongoing practice to try, starting with her own reparations, towards manifesting an equitable society. We are not there yet. That’s usually her initial motivation: to create work, to artistically interrogate the sociopolitical landscape, tracing root causes and wounds across time carved on the body politic. www.veronicadyas.com 

PROJECT RESIDENCY  

In June 2023 the community will move to phase two of the project and will engage in a week-long residency in the CUBE at Project Arts Centre – working with an extended creative and production team. This will be the community’s first residency off-site and marks a significant step in their development as artistic collaborators. 

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This is a partnership project between Project Arts Centre, Create, and Fatima Groups United