Long-term grassroots member Cliodhna Noonan from Acting Up has set up residency in Axis Ballymun, a community resource centre with an arts centre and serves as a resource in Ballymun. This area north of Dublin City Centre, is well-known for the city's early rehousing scheme from the inner city to the outer suburbs in the 1960s. Through this redevelopment, a number of social problems followed including high unemployment, drug addition, marginalisation among others.
Axis is a centre for excellence with the community of Ballymun at its heart. It was founded by a number of community development organisations and artists resident in the community and opened to the public in 2001. Axis’ aim is to programme at the point of excellence and inclusion, combining creative community development and artistic excellence to provide opportunities for professional and community member alike. Axis actively programmes and commissions original work that is relevant to its locality, history and growing constituency and programmes with the explicit intention of exploring and enhancing artists experiences, while introducing new work and new ways of working.
A key component of Cliodhna's work is on creativity, expression and intercultural dialogue through storytelling for the very young. She will participate and facilitate a workshop in Morocco as part of the planned network exchange 5-8 March 2024. Cliodhna says "I am inspired by the work of the Anna Lindh Foundation to generate moments of connection between cultures and to use various means to do so, including artistic and creative workshops." Keep an eye out for more updates later in the month and wishing Cliodhna the very best of luck in Morocco!
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