Artist Seoídin O Sullivan standing at The Temple in Goldenbridge Cemetery.

Her art projects are collaborative and focus on people joining together in action to protect or develop an aspect of their local commons. During her residency at The Lodge Seoidin worked on many projects including HARD/GRAFT, MAPPING GREEN DUBLIN and PLOTS.

MAPPING GREEN DUBLIN

MAPPING GREEN DUBLIN emerged from Seoidín O’Sullivan’s HARD/GRAFT project. MAPPING GREEN DUBLIN was a collaborative action research project led by UCD’s School of Geography in collaboration with Common Ground, Seoidín O’Sullivan and event facilitators Connect the Dots. This project was tasked with mapping green spaces and trees across the Dublin 8 area and connecting with local people in Dublin 8 to identify green space deficits and future needs. The project was officially launched in March 7th  2020. Learn more here about MAPPING GREEN DUBLIN.

HARD/GRAFT : towards community orchards

HARD/GRAFT formed as part her studio 468 CITIZEN ARTIST award in 2017. During Seoidín’s residency at The Lodge she concluded this three year project. Seoidín worked with a range of groups from the local community, this included the grafting and planting of fruit trees in local sites to create community orchards. The final planting took place in February 2020 when the remaining Irish heritage apple tree whips were transplanted from their nursery in Richmond Barracks to Grattan Park, Inchicore. Students from the Model National School and Mercy Secondary School gathered to plant the young trees.

PLOTS

PLOTS was a collaboration between Seoidín and geographer Alma Clavin. Seoidín was due to curate a bi-weekly series of walk and talks – PLOTS – as part of MAPPING GREEN DUBLIN, from March to May 2020. With restrictions due to Covid this project was reimagined. PLOTS was presented to the public online via a video and a designed booklet that asked the public to plot their 2km or 5km walk/cycle/run and share these maps with MAPPING GREEN DUBLIN. PLOTS created an active site of communal mapping, exploration and gathering. It acted as part of the research programme for MAPPING GREEN DUBLIN, combining the tools of geographical field work and mapping with artistic walking and drawing methodologies. Participants collectively and playfully created a deep mapping of Dublin’s South West Inner City.

On August 15th 2020, PLOTS – the series of maps from those 2k/5k walk/cycle/runs from the public was exhibited outdoors in the temple at Goldenbridge Cemetery along with a Greening Forum urban prototyping workshop, and a series of walks and talks.

Common Ground supported Seoidín O’Sullivan in her publication: HARD/GRAFT: CONVERSATIONS ON PLANTING A COMMONS, the culmination of three years of this project at the end of 2020.