Wednesday – Friday
June 11th – 13th
Threads Programme
Small groups came together to focus on how to move the dial on the rich discussions arising from nine Creative Brain Weeks in three years across five countries, multiple cultures and many varieties of health and care service.
These discussions set out to shape the future of brain health by moving interesting and informative conversations to specific action, in areas including Creativity, Brain Health, Alzheimer’s disease and Dementia, Policy, Health Care and Education. They maintain CBW’s value based recipe at their core.
At the end of the week, each Thread presented back in a session open to the public.
12noon - 2pm - OPEN TO PUBLIC
Arts and Health Timeline
Tracing the timeline for Arts & Health development in Ireland is the backdrop to facilitated discussion about creative work as transformation or transaction, apprenticeship, cultural ecosystem and the ability of Ireland’s rich tradition of arts and health to collaborate meaningfully with its health and care services.
The timeline was added to each day following a discussion of practitioners and creative programmers in this area, led by Emma Eager and Réalta.
Panels included
- Chair – Realta
- Contributors Wednesday included Justine Foster
- Contributors Thursday included Mary Grehan
Contributors
Emma Eager has been active in the field of arts and health in the Republic of Ireland for 14 years. She works with Réalta, the national resource organisation for arts and health, managing the national website (artsandhealth.ie) and co-ordinating the Expanding Arts in Healthcare programme, an inter-agency partnership between the HSE, the Department of Health (Healthy Ireland Programme), the Arts Council and the Creative Ireland Programme. Emma is a guest lecturer on the NCAD / CFA Professional Diploma in Art and Health.
Arts and Health Facebook @artsandhealth.ie
Realta Facebook @realtaartshealth
Arts and Health Instagram @artsandhealth.ie
Realta Instagram @realtaartshealth
Realta LinkedIn https://ie.linkedin.com/company/r%C3%A9alta-arts-health
Justine Foster spent several years working as a visual artist in a public and community context in the UK and Ireland. She is currently Programme Manager at Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre (WCAC), where she has worked for 25 years to create an inclusive, vibrant space for public and artists. For Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, she has developed numerous collaborative projects with an emphasis on forging local, regional, and national partnerships. In 2002, she initiated an Arts for Health Partnership Programme with the HSE, Cork Education & Training Board and Cork County Council which she continues to manage. In 2015, she initiated a Contemporary Dance Programme at Uillinn and began producing Uillinn Dance Season in 2018. Justine is member of Arts and Health Coordinators Ireland (AHCI, Chairperson 2020 – 2022) and is currently engaging in a masters research at MTU Crawford College Cork.
Website:
https://www.
https://www.instagram.com/
Mary Grehan is Public Art Curator at Children’s Health Ireland. She was Director of the Waterford Healing Arts Trust from 2002 until 2016 and Visual Arts Curator of the National Maternity Hospital Centenary Arts Programme in 1994 / 95. A graduate of National College of Art and Design, UCD and the University of Central Lancashire, she has published widely in the field of arts in health. Her debut novel was published by Penguin Ireland in 2013. She divides her time between Dublin and Waterford, Ireland.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-grehan-197841150
https://www.artsandhealth.ie/articles-documentation/reading-between-the-lines/
Instagram: @marybtgrehan
Bluesky: @marybtgrehan.bsky.social
X: MaryBGrehan
Claire Meaney, together with the Réalta team, has developed significant partnerships with national and international stakeholders to support the advancement of arts and health practice in Ireland. A passionate advocate for the sector, Claire has extensive experience of managing and delivering arts and health programmes in acute hospitals and community healthcare settings. She has been Director of Waterford Healing Arts Trust since 2017, prior to which she had been Assistant Director since 2007. Claire also project managed the national resource website artsandhealth.ie from its inception in 2011 until 2016. Her background is in Fine Art and she holds a Master’s Degree in Arts & Heritage Management.
Réalta is the new national resource organisation for arts and health in Ireland, founded on decades of pioneering arts and health practice as Waterford Healing Arts Trust and the encyclopaedic knowledge/insight gathered under artsandhealth.ie. Réalta’s vision is for the arts to be embedded into the provision of healthcare in Ireland. Our mission is to lead the development of the arts and health sector in Ireland through support, promotion and advancement, and the demonstration of excellence in artistic delivery.
Exhibition open to public
Reframing: Acquired Brain Injury
Artists and people living with Acquired Brain Injury gathered to share experience around the creation of a mandala led by Rachel Fitzpatrick supported by Ciara O’Malley Brain Injury Matters NI and Grainne McGettrick and Aoife Lucy at Acquired Brain Injury Ireland.
The exhibition of the Mandala was open to the public without booking.
Contributors
Rachel Fitzpatrick graduated from the School of Art & Design in Belfast in 2005 with a degree in Fine and Applied Art specialising in textiles. Since then she has worked with a variety of creative clients across the globe with noteable appearances in the United States, France, Germany, Japan and the Venice Biennale, Italy. In Ireland her work as been collected by private clients and can be viewed in Michelin star restaurants in Dublin.
In recent years Rachel has developed a more socially engaged strand to her practice working closely with galleries, schools and councils in Northern Ireland to create workshops aimed to develop creative skills and confidence. During the 2020-2021 Covid lockdowns Rachel developed a series of children’s online workshops in partnership with the FE McWilliam Gallery & Studio to stimulate creativity and playfulness at home. She currently works closely with the MAC in Belfast as one of their social engaged practitioners supporting their children’s programs and workshops.
Fitzpatrick is committed to supporting the strategic development of the arts sector in Northern Ireland sitting on the boards of both Craft NI and Thrive. She is particularly interested in championing the importance of collaboration across the arts and cultural sectors, cultivating business opportunities and developing international partnerships. Rachel is a member of Design Nation and a coordinator of the Scotland & Northern Ireland Cluster Hub.
www.rachelfitzpatrickdesign.
Aoife has more than a decade’s experience working in the areas of strategic and internal communications, stakeholder relations, marketing and publicity in the community and cultural sectors. Most recently she held the role of Communications and Marketing Manager at Ireland’s national music education programme, Music Generation, and previously worked with leading national and international cultural organisations including Dublin Theatre Festival, the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Canadian Stage and the Abbey Theatre.
A graduate of Trinity College with a degree in Drama Studies and English Literature, Aoife has since completed a Certificate in Management Practice with the University of Ulster and a Certificate in Community Education and Equality Studies at Maynooth University. In her free time, she enjoys running, reading, swimming in the sea and spending time with family.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifelucey
Grainne is the Director of Policy and Research with Acquired Brain Injury Ireland where she leads the strategic development of the organisation’s policy and research agenda. With a background at the intersection of policy, research, and advocacy in the Irish NGO sector, Gráinne is dedicated to addressing health inequalities and championing the human rights of those facing exclusion due to ageing, dementia and disability. She has played a key role in leading successful national policy advocacy campaigns, forming alliances and coalitions, engaging stakeholders, and fostering collaborations at national, European and international levels. Gráinne is a Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Centre for Policy and Health Management, TCD.
Websites:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/grainne-mcgettrick
Social Media:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gráinne-mcgettrick-77129121/
X; @ABIIreland and @GBHI_Fellows
Instagram: @braininjury_ire
Ciara joined the Brain Injury Matters team in November 2019. Ciara has a BA (Hons) Fine Art, (Sheffield Hallam University), P.G.C.E in Visual Arts with subsidiary in Craft, Design Technology, (Leeds University) and an MA (Dist) Art in Public, (University of Ulster).
Over the last 20 years, Ciara has worked as an artist, artist-in residence, arts facilitator, lead artist, arts coordinator and arts manager initiating, developing and managing a wide range of arts projects with people of ages, abilities and disabilities throughout England, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Berlin, Australia, Iceland and in her home, Northern Ireland.
https://braininjurymatters.org.uk/
https://www.vaultartiststudios.com/ciara-omalley
Closed session
Measuring the impact of creativity on brain health
Creative practice as research, strategies for art as policy making. What are appropriate models for measuring the impact of creativity on brain health? Do they exist or need developing? How can we better articulate the impact of the work that we can see? Does a medical model leave impact unmeasured? What are we aware of?
Chair Claire Howlin
Contributors
Claire is a psychology researcher interested in identifying the long-term impact of music and visual arts engagement on lifelong health and wellbeing using controlled experimental designs and evidence synthesis from large international datasets. Central to Claire’s research is understanding how music and arts engagement can facilitate personal agency, identity development, and self-efficacy, which are key determinants of mental health and psychological wellbeing. Before coming to Trinity Claire held a Junior Research Fellowship with the University of Cambridge focussed on music therapy for autistic children, and a Creative Health Fellowship from University College London. Previously, her research has been supported by the Irish Research Council, Nurofen, the Society for Music Psychology and Education Research, and University College Dublin. She enjoys collaborating directly with artists and creative people and the findings of her previous research have been featured in a range of international academic journals (BMC Psychiatry, PLOS One, Journal of Music Therapy) and mainstream press outlets (e.g. Forbes Magazine, BBC Radio). She is currently in the special interest group for arts and health in the Royal Society of Public health.
https://www.tcd.ie/psychology/people/academic-staff/howlincl/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claire-Howlin
@dancingresearch.bluesky.social
Closed session
Cultural Spaces and Institutions
Exploring the long and short term benefits these spaces can bring, and share strategy with US and Irish cultural centre leads, architects, cultural planners and neuroscientists. Contributors over two days included designer Craig Riley and playwright Pamela Carter of Studio Riley and others.
Chair Brian Kennedy.
Contributors
Pamela Carter is a playwright and dramaturg creating ideas-driven, conceptual pieces that seem to straddle a world of theatre, visual art and performance art with a distinctly continental European resonance.
Her work as writer with Laing’s Untitled Projects includes: The End of Eddy, Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Slope, and An Argument about Sex. Other plays include: Them!; LINES; What We Know; and Skåne (winner of the New Writing Commission at the Berliner Festspiele Stückemarkt 2012).
Pamela also writes for dance, opera, and for the artists Goldin+Senneby, whose work explores the structural correspondence between conceptual art and finance.
https://www.studioriley.co.uk/
Brian Kennedy is a leadership consultant and adviser to philanthropists and arts organizations. He has enjoyed extensive experience in directorship positions at art museums in Ireland, Australia and the United States of America. He is an accomplished community leader, communicator, educator, author, curator, fundraiser, mentor and thought leader in visual literacy and creative aging.
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/brian-kennedy
https://camd.org.au/brian-kennedy-andras-szanto-on-ageism/
https://eamichelsonphilanthropy.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-p-kennedy-05ab2136/
After more than twenty-five years experience, Craig Riley set up his own practice to pursue the design of objects, spaces and experiences.
As a Director at leading award-winning design firm Casson Mann, Craig led the design teams on milestone projects such as Lascaux and Cité de la Gastronomie in France, the Endeavour Galleries at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the Ocean Liners: Speed and Style exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and Dundee, and the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge in Canterbury in the UK. Recently, Craig was Lead Designer and Artistic Director for the transformation of the Musée National de La Marine in Paris.
By the end of 2023, alongside a number of private commissions, studioRILEY completed a consultation commission with a series of creative workshops with AOC Architecture on the ‘immersive and theatrical’ aspects of a project at the Science and Media Museum in Bradford, UK. And completed the first stage in providing an adaptable and reusable Pop-Up display kit for pioneering ethical retailer Different Kind, for fifteen events over the festive period.
In 2024, the studio worked with the National Maritime Museum in London and the Center for Computing History in Cambridge, UK. In a team with leading museum practice Wright & Wright Architects, the studio embarked on initial studies for a major new gallery for the Science Museum in London.
https://www.studioriley.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/studioriley_/
Closed session
Embodied and Performed Learning
Live performance artists, dancers and theatre makers learn through the body. For instance by mimicking, imitating movements, assuming physical shapes, arranging and rearranging the position of a limb or gesture, by matching rhythm and breath. What can this bring to our understanding of people living with degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s? How might it assist in health care, in communication or in systems change?
Chair Nicholas Johnson
Contributors included
- Jenny MacDonald
- Phil Kingston
- Tania Cañas
Part of an ongoing collaboration between Global Brain Health Institute, The Abbey Theatre and SoloSIRENS.
Contributors
Tania’s research examines community-based performance within structurally excluded communities. She currently sits on the editorial board at the International Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Academic Journal/ PTO Inc. Tania has published widely including through Currency Press Australia, Intellect Books, Melbourne University Publishing, Arts Hub and e-flux as well as various international academic journals and magazines. Her work has been translated and published into German and Russian through academic journals as well as dramaturgical publications. She has presented at conferences as well as facilitated community theatre workshops locally and internationally. Tania is also the Coordinator at Cohealth Arts Generator, a community health organisation that uses arts based methodologies to challenge race-based discrimination. She sits on the board of Western Edge Youth Theatre, an organiastion providing space for young people to come together to tell their own stories, in their own way and with their own voice.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/taniacanas
https://icafrotterdam.com/makers/tania-canas/
https://refugeeresearchonline.org/speaker/tania-can%CC%83as/
Nicholas Johnson is Associate Professor of Drama at Trinity College Dublin, where he directs the Trinity Centre for Beckett Studies and convenes the interdisciplinary Creative Arts Practice research theme. His books include Beckett’s Voices / Voicing Beckett (Brill, 2021), Influencing Beckett / Beckett Influencing (L’Harmattan, 2020), Experimental Beckett (Cambridge UP, 2020) and Bertolt Brecht’s David Fragments (1919–1921): An Interdisciplinary Study (Bloomsbury, 2020). He co-edited the “Performance Issue” (23.1, 2014) and the “Pedagogy Issue” (29.1, 2020) of the Journal of Beckett Studies (Edinburgh UP). Directing credits include Virtual Play (2017–19) and world premieres of The David Fragments (2017), Enemy of the Stars(2015), and No’s Knife (Lincoln Center, 2015). He works as dramaturg with Pan Pan, OT Platform, and Dead Centre and facilitates theatre workshops internationally. He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 2021.
Websites:
https://tcd.academia.edu/NicholasJohnson
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/about/partners/beckett-centre.php
Social Media:
Phil Kingston is Community and Education Manager of The Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s National Theatre. He trained as an actor and went on to work on stage, screen and radio as well as writing for theatre and TV. In November 2011, he joined the Abbey and has helped design and deliver over 100 applied drama and education projects. He is a member of the Learning and Engagement Group of the Council of National Cultural Institutions, and also serves on the board and advisory panels for several key education and arts organisations in Ireland.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/philkingston
Jenny Macdonald is a theatremaker and facilitator whose practice encompasses writing / performing and directing / facilitating. Her most recent production, ‘The Tightrope Walker’ was presented at Smock Alley Theatre as part of First Fortnight Festival 2025. It has also been presented at the Civic, The Samuel Beckett Theatre, and Beaumont and Tallaght University Hospitals.
Her previous solo show, ‘Enthroned’ was programmed by the Civic, glor, Town Hall (Galway), First Fortnight and the New York International Fringe Festival. She was Writer in Residence at the Irish Hospice Foundation, 2022-2023.
In 2019, she founded SoloSIRENs, an intercultural collective of female-identifying artists in residence at the Civic, Tallaght. With SoloSIRENS, she aims to amplify female-identifying voices and to create more just, sustainable, and caring models of making and presenting theatre. For SoloSIRENs she has devised and directed “Careground” (Civic 2023), “Cessair” (Civic, 2021), “Dear Ireland III” (Abbey Theatre, 2020), and “Falling” (Civic, 2019). She has also curated two SoloSIRENs festivals and two symposia including ‘How Do We Care?’ Festival at the Civic, 2023 and ‘Today When I Listen, This Is What I Hear’ Symposium as part of Dublin Theatre Festival, 2022.
She is an Associate Artist with South Dublin Participatory Arts (TCA) and with the Abbey Theatre. She is a lecturer in Socially Engaged Theatre at Trinity College, Dublin and New York University. She is an alumnus of Dublin Theatre Festival’s ‘The Next Stage’ and a mentor to many emerging artists and companies.
Website:
Social:
Facebook: @solosirens
X: @solosirens
Instagram: @macdjenny/ and @solosirens
As Ireland’s national theatre, the Abbey Theatre’s ambition is to enrich the cultural lives of everyone with a curiosity for and interest in Irish theatre, stories, artists and culture. Courage and imagination are at the heart of our storytelling, while inclusivity, diversity and equality are at the core of our thinking. Led by Co-Directors Caitríona McLaughlin (Artistic Director) and Mark O’Brien (Executive Director), the Abbey Theatre celebrates both the rich canon of Irish dramatic writing and the potential of future generations of Irish theatre artists.
Ireland has a rich history of theatre and playwriting and extraordinary actors, designers and directors. Artists are at the heart of our organisation, with Marina Carr and Conor McPherson as Senior Associate Playwrights and Caroline Byrne as Associate Director.
Our stories teach us what it is to belong, what it is to be excluded and to exclude. Artistically our programme is built on twin impulses, and around two questions: “who we were, and who are we now?” We interrogate our classical canon with an urgency about what makes it speak to this moment. On our stages we find and champion new voices and new ways of seeing, our purpose – to identify combinations of characters we are yet to meet, having conversations we are yet to hear.
https://www.facebook.com/abbeytheatredublin
https://www.instagram.com/abbeytheatredublin/
The Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) is dedicated to protecting the world’s aging populations from threats to brain health.
We strive to improve brain health for populations across the world, reaching into local communities and across our global network. GBHI brings together a powerful mix of disciplines, professions, backgrounds, skills, perspectives, and approaches to develop new science-based solutions.
We focus on working compassionately with people in vulnerable and under-served populations to improve outcomes and promote dignity for all people.
GBHI was founded in 2015 by a generous gift from The Atlantic Philanthropies. Our founding sites are based at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Trinity College Dublin (Trinity).
https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-brain-health-institute-gbhi-/
Closed session
Nursing, healthcare and creativity
Can a short course for entry level healthcare workers be created in three days?
Can it be delivered in person and online in 2026? And, to how many?
Chair Dominic Campbell
Contributors include Atlantic Fellows who attended Creative Brain Week in the last three years:
- Prabha Shrestha
- Vanessa De la Cruz-Góngora
- Fransiska Sugi
- Rennta Chrisdiana
- Lingani Mbakile-Mahlanza
- Sreypeov Tun
- Yvette Andrews
Contributors
Yvette is a community health activist with knowledge and skills to work with vulnerable communities. She is innovative and able to think out of the box. She can work on my own or within a team and has excellent people skills.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvette-andrews-6318597b
https://www.atlanticfellows.org/bio/yvette-andrews
Dominic Campbell is leading the Creative Brain Week initiative. As Bealtaine Festival Director he steered its celebration of creativity and aging’s development over eight years. Formerly an Artistic Director of Ireland’s national celebration he transformed St Patrick’s Festival’s three shows into ninety growing production, managerial teams, financial support, engagement and impact.
Dominic went on to design and produce national celebrations marking the expansion of European Union in 2004 and Centenary celebrations for James Joyce. For “The Day Of Welcomes” delivering 12 simultaneous festivals pairing EU expansion countries with Irish towns and cities engaging 2,500 artists from 32 countries.
He mentored “celebration of ageing” festivals in Wales (Gwanwynn), Scotland (Luminate), and developed projects with partners in Australia and The Netherlands. In 2012 he established the first global conference on Creativity In Older Age opened by Irish President Michael D Higgins, replicating it in San Francisco (2018) and Kentucky (2019).
Recognized as a key cultural influencer in Ireland by The Irish Times and by First Avenue as a Key Influencer in Aging in the US, in 2016 he became an inaugural Atlantic Fellow for Equity and Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute a project between Trinity College Dublin and University of California San Francisco an ambitious worldwide program seeking social and public health solutions to reduce the scale and adverse impact of dementia. Currently developing an arts programme for the Irish Hospice Foundation as response to the pandemic and the Ageing Voices programme with Sing Ireland.
Website:
www.creativeaginginternational.com
www.gbhi.org/profiles/dominic-campbell
Social:
X: @CreativeAgeIntl and @CreativeBrainWk and @IrelandChorus
Rennta is a community educator and a passionate advocate for various causes, including mental health, health equity, and youth empowerment. Rennta is also a Fellow for the Health Equity Initiative in Southeast Asia and a member of the Global Atlantic Fellows Advisory Board.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rennta-chrisdiana-935ab768/?originalSubdomain=id
https://www.atlanticfellows.org/bio/rennta-chrisdiana
Vanessa holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Nutrition from the University of Veracruz, as well as a Master’s and a Doctorate in Population Nutrition Sciences from the School of Public Health of Mexico (SPHM). She is a member of the Mexican National System of Researchers. Since 2006, Vanessa has been working at the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH) in Mexico as a medical researcher and Associate Coordinator of the Doctoral Program in Population Nutrition. She is also the General Coordinator of the Master’s Program in Science in Public Health at the School of Public Health of Mexico. Additionally, she serves as a member of the Research Ethics Committee at the NIPH and is a professor of the “Nutrition and Aging” course in the Master’s and Doctoral Programs in Nutrition Sciences at the SPHM.
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/vanessa-de-la-cruz-gongora
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-de-la-cruz-g%C3%B3ngora-3b59b41a5
X: @vane_dlcg
Lingani has an appointment at the University of Botswana as a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the psychology department and as coordinator of the psychology clinic. She has a special interest in neurodegenerative conditions, traumatic brain injury, and training in neuropsychology.
Lingani is also an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute.
Website:
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/lingani-mbakile-mahlanza
Social:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lingani-mbakile-mahlanza-5b7770154/
https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/prabha-shrestha
Fransiska is passionate about working at the intersection of research, development, and policy.
Her research has focused on the impacts of climate change on food security, water, and gender and social inclusion, and she has drawn on her 13 years of public-sector experience to make strategic alliances with the government in order to scale evidence-based actions in water, food security, and livelihood sectors.
Her efforts to build the technical capacity of local institutions span rural communities in 44 villages of NTT and have helped to reduce risk to lives and livelihoods and increase the resilience of communities to all climate-related hazards.
Through her leadership of Hands of Hope, Fransiska demonstrates her belief that grassroots work – in the spirit of giving back to society and working within communities – can bring both empathy and expertise to help vulnerable people improve their lives.
She hopes to become an agent of change in her province in ways that will eliminate poverty and improve the quality of lives of marginalized women and children.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fransiska-falentina-sugi-8322502b6
https://www.atlanticfellows.org/bio/fransiska-falentina-sugi
https://www.equityinitiative.org/