Green Arts Projects

The Balcony Project 

For the third year running we were delighted to collaborate with artist Louis Haugh for our community Green Arts Project. 

From April to September 2024, Louis met with the group on the 2nd floor balcony to build, plant, read, print, research and share all things Queer Ecology. 

Watch the short film below to see what it’s all about, and get in touch if you want to be involved in the project in 2025! Email cathy@projectartscentre.ie

For the third year running, we’re delighted to be kicking off our community Green Arts Project with artist Louis Haugh.

What is The Balcony Project

Project Arts Centre is looking for people based in Dublin City Centre, who are members and allies of the LGBTQIA+ community, to join artist Louis Haugh on a period of practice-led research centered around Queer Ecologies. We are especially welcoming of people with a passion for creativity, whether you have an artistic practice or not, as well as those interested in ecology, community, and activism.

What is Queer Ecology?

Queer Ecology is a term used to express a variety of alternative methods and approaches that are possible when it comes to considering ecology. The natural world is full of things that don’t fit a set binary and the study of queer ecology celebrates these shifts away from traditional perspectives.

What is involved?

Starting on April 10th, we will meet approximately eight times over a twelve-week period in Project Arts Centre, with the possibility of other close by meeting locations in the city, TBC. These sessions will be informal and very inclusive and the activities will range from ecology research, creative workshops, balcony gardening and collective readings.

Ó Liath go Glas, (From grey to green), was a community project emerging from 2022’s Rhizome Green Arts project. Louis Haugh worked with the community at RADE through a series of workshops that activated under-used concrete space through regenerative greening. Through this process the project reflected on and considered the history of formal gardening as a history of colonialism, bringing focus back to the indigenous cultures where many of our common plants originate from.  

Centered around an invitation of hospitality, the longterm aim of these collaborative projects, is to connect members of neighbouring communities by activating outdoor spaces through art, ecology, and education. 

RADE is an organisation that aims to engage drug users through the arts and therapeutic supports and provide a platform for their artistic expression.

Connecting community, arts and science

Rhizome is a Green Arts programme that aims to highlight the critical role of creativity, optimism, and imagination in the craft of social and environmental change. Initiated by Project Arts Centre in 2021, the project is led by Artivist in Residence Maeve Stone and Artist in the Community Louis Haugh, in partnership with Fatima Groups United, NCAD Field & Trinity College Dublin. At its core, it seeks to connect local communities from different backgrounds and disciplines, in creative conversation about the future of our planet.

Future Food

As part of the Rhizome project, commissioned artist Louis Haugh, worked in collaboration with the Fatima Groups United community to look at the future of food cultivation, consumption, and global supply chains in light of climate breakdown. Together, they created a space to share ideas, histories and personal relationships connected to food and nourishment. Through a series of intergenerational and intercultural exchanges, their intrinsic human relationship to bread and bread making became core of this work. 

Read more about Future Food here.

Rhizome Symposium

The Rhizome Green Arts Symposium took place on June 15th 2022 and consisted of performances, talks, scientific demonstrations and artists panels.  

Symposium Contributors included:

• Maeve Stone Theatre Artist | Project Arts Centre | Artivist in Residence  
• Louis Haugh Visual Artist | Project Arts Centre | Artist in the Community 
• Richie Keane Fatima Groups United | Community Coordinator  
• Gareth Kennedy Assistant Lecturer | Sculpture and Expanded practice | Coordinator of NCAD FIELD 
• DR Quentin Crowley Director of Trinity Centre for the Environment | Associate Professor Geology | Fellow Trinity College Dublin 
• Sarah McCormick Associate Professor in Energy Engineering | Trinity College Dublin 
• NCAD FIELD students Sylvia Maher, Luis ‘Quique’ Martin, Kasia Boyle, Bill Harris, Muireann Ni Fheargail, Mary Hoy, Dean Stynes 
• Eileen Hutton Visual Artist | Roots for the Future participant  
• Rosie O’Reilly Visual Artist | Roots for the Future participant  
• Vanya Ward – Lambrecht Visual Artist | Roots for the Future participant  
• Sinead Curran Visual Artist | Roots for the Future participant  
• Roise Goan | Artistic Director of ArtsAdmin (UK)  
• Katriona Fallon | Co-Founder of the Green Arts Initiative of Ireland in Association with Theatre Forum and Creative Carbon Scotland 
• Alice Ryan | Public Policy Manager at Arts Council of Ireland  
• Community Participants: Wafaa Mustafa Zeniah, Una Doyle, Tony Dunbar, Sylvia Whelan, Siana O’Connor, Mary Kennedy, Marie Maher, Margaret Humphreys, Joan Russell, Geraldine Guy, Dallal Bounekdja 
• NCAD FIELD students: Sylvia Maher, Luis ‘Quique’ Martin, Kasia Boyle, Bill Harris, Muireann Ni Fheargail, Mary Hoy, Dean Stynes