Crucial Moves Collective

It’s been quite a year so far, and I’ve not had much time to post here in ages. So, over the next few weeks, I’m going to share a few bits and pieces of what I’ve been up to.

One of the most fun, challenging and rewarding projects I’ve had the honour of being part of this year has been the Crucial Moves Collective.

Crucial Moves is a collaborative arts and transformative education project bringing together a community of young creatives whose families came to Ireland seeking sanctuary, and who navigate growing up here from an intersectional position, working collaboratively to create work that centres their stories and perspectives together with established artists and creative educators to explore how creativity can be part of working towards social and systemic change.

The project is led by the brilliant Helen O’Keeffe from Creativity & Change at MTU Crawford, in collaboration with Raphael Olympio from Sauti Studio and mentor Kate O’Shea, alongside a whole host of contributors. It is supported by the Arts Council’s Children and Young People’s Arts Project Award, MTU Crawford, Cork Midsummer Festival and Irish Aid.

The collective developed through a travelling residency from Cork to Donegal in April 2026, bringing together practising and emerging artists from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds. Together, we explored ideas around self, home, Ireland and community, developing a growing body of multidisciplinary work along the way.

I first joined the collective during the Donegal leg as a mentor and facilitator. Later, I travelled back to Cork to join the collective for their exhibition as part of Cork Midsummer Festival, and to take part in further facilitation around Crucial News.

For Crucial News, the young people became editors, journalists, designers and publishers, creating their own newspaper around the issues, experiences and subjects that matter to them. It was a really interesting space to think about whose stories get told, who gets to make the news, and what happens when young people are given the tools to create their own narratives rather than simply being represented by someone else.

I’ve really loved being part of this collective, not least because there is so much creatvity, generosity, curiosity, humour and exchange within the group.

And the work is still ongoing.

You can find out more about Crucial Moves and follow the collective’s work here.