Wexford County Council, Fingal County Council and Dublin City Council initiated a research project in 2017 titled An Urgent Enquiry with funding from the Arts Council under the ‘Invitation to Collaboration’ scheme. Each local authority hosted a Think Tank at which artists, scientists and biodiversity experts presented approaches to Art, Biodiversity and Climate Change. An Urgent Enquiry highlighted the role of artists’ contributions to this debate and through a series of Think Tank sessions in each county, drew together artists, scientists, activists and policy makers. What struck the participants in all the sessions was the pursuit and commitment to find a way to address these global concerns within a local context and a belief in the role of artists to offer thought provoking responses to these local and global issues. The collectively explored themes which emerged through the research phase were nuanced in the areas of social, political and cultural attitudes. These significant residencies were awarded to Mark Clare, Fiona McDonald and Mary Conroy & Joanna Hopkins. The residencies offered each artist the opportunity to reside for three months in the local authority to explore the biodiversity of each area and the effects of climate change. These research residencies involved interactions with local biodiversity and environmental specialists, scientists, local experts relating to the artists interests, and engaging with local communities, with ongoing support from the local authority Arts & Biodiversity Offices.

Both phases of An Urgent Enquiry were documented in a series of reports I produced in my role as Researcher and Evaluator for the project. The Think Tank reports can be found here:

Dublin City Think Tank Report Fingal Think Tank Report Wexford Think Tank Report

Both phases were also expertly documented in photography and video by Brian Cregan (photo credit above).

The final text was co-authored by Liz Burns (Wexford Arts Officer) Caroline Cowley (Public Art Co-ordinator, Fingal County Council) Ruairí Ó Cuív (Public Art Officer, Dublin City Council) and me, Dr Eileen Hutton (Lecturer for the MFA in Art and Ecology at Burren College of Art)

More information can be found here at the official website An Urgent Enquiry