Community Arts Programme

The vision for the NEIC Community Arts Programme is that community arts, when delivered with commitment and in a meaningful way, can be transformative. Community Arts is an essential component of social inclusion, social justice and equality.

The goal of the NEIC Initiative is to have an arts programme which facilitates improved social cohesion and wellbeing in the community ensuring active listening, engagement and consultation with participating youth projects, community groups, local residents, schools and after school projects, Dublin City Council (DCC) including the DCC Arts Office, creative facilitators, arts organisations, community organisations, and other agencies or personnel involved in the arts programme.

The Community Arts programme aims to create a vibrant, empowered and inclusive community where everyone has the opportunity to participate in and benefit from the arts.

Early Years Arts Residency

The Early Years Arts Residency was a year-long initiative in partnership with Hugh Lane Gallery, which ran from May 2023 to May 2024. The residency involved weekly sessions at Ozanam House Early Learning Centre with three groups of children, and each month the children, their parents and early years educators visited Hugh Lane Gallery where they creatively engaged and responded to artworks and the gallery space.

Magic in the Mansions

Artists brought magic to the children of St. Mary’s Mansions as part of a collaboration between Clúid and the NEIC Initiative. This interactive programme aimed to support the children to develop their creative potential and encourage a sense of belonging and identity within their new surroundings.

The Artists created a mystery for participating local children by calling to their doors each week and playing with the children on their doorstep. As members of the ‘Creature Features Detective Agency’, they invited the children to help them solve the mystery of the strange creatures that had been spotted around the Mary’s Mansions.

Each week, as the children designed and developed their creatures, their stories grew and soon we had fifteen very strange mysteries to solve created by twenty-five very clever storytellers aged between four and twelve.

The ‘Try It Out’ Programme

The ‘Try It Out’ programme afforded groups the opportunity to participate in a range of creative programmes with the NEIC Community Arts Programme, Hugh Lane Gallery and the Gate Theatre. Thirty different community and school groups have availed of the programme this year exploring Music, Performance, Drama and Storytelling and the Visual Arts.

Spirit of the Kingdom of the Kongo

The NEIC Community Arts Programme in collaboration with the New Communities Partnership and Charleville Mall Library presented an exhibition for children that explored Art and Heritage from the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo and Angola. This exhibition was engaging, and enabled those who attended to reflect in a meaningful way on the artefacts and information from their visit.