Collective Futures 2026: February to December
The art collective School of Thought (artist Augustine O’Donoghue and author Dr Conor McCabe) will realise the final stage of their collaboration ‘Taking to the Streets’ as part of Common Ground’s Collective Futures Awards 2024–2026.
‘Taking to the Streets’ builds on the group’s earlier research, including ‘Artwork in Anticipation of Door-Knocking Politicians’ and a series of Counter Culture events such as film screenings, walks, and talks held across Dublin 8. From February to December 2026, the collective will be based in studio 468 at St Andrew’s Community Centre, opening the space to a wide range of local activists and interest groups.
Working collaboratively with residents, activist, and community networks, they will co-create a new critical public artwork, ‘Taking to the Streets’, drawing on a critique of capitalism through the flows of land and property and its impact on communities in Dublin 8. The work will be developed by participants through a series of collaborative workshops, research, talks and walks. It will draw on the lived experiences of participants, exploring these in the context of a rich radical history of working-class activism that has existed in the area for centuries.
The new public artwork will be presented in 2026, unfolding as a series of collective creative performances across the streets of Dublin 8, alongside an accompanying series of publications.
