Works Archive - Common Ground

Collective Futures 2026: February to December

Ger Nolan — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 09:43:36 +0000

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.

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Collective Futures 2025: July to December

Ger Nolan — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 11:03:04 +0000

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The Caretakers’ Residency

Ger Nolan — Thu, 29 May 2025 16:02:08 +0000

The Caretakers’ Residency is a long term-project that studies the practice and philosophies of collective care led by Elizabeth Woods & Kevin Leong.

This began with the observation that many of the most urgent and intractable global crises are not due to unforeseen circumstances, but to the systemic failure in forming or maintain care relationships, whether these be related to the environment, politics, the media, technology, culture, education, or health. The project will follow the proposition that community members vocationally involved in collective and radical care have distinct understandings of and approaches to these crises, and it aims to study how these care practices and aspirations. In later project stages, these studies will provide provocations for future community action and projects.

As part of their foundational study and research, Kevin and Elizabeth met with and interviewed Collective Caretakers in the local Dublin 8 community.

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The Women Flower Sellers of Grafton Street Film

Ger Nolan — Thu, 29 May 2025 15:55:23 +0000

The Women Flower Sellers of Grafton Street is a short film written by Patricia Mc Cann in collaboration with the women flower sellers and filmmaker Vinny Murphy. The film is a representation of the inter-generational connection to selling flowers on Grafton Street including research in the National Archives, UCD special archives, the National Gallery of Ireland, and the Lee Miller archives in the UK. All combined it builds a participatory film work capturing the stories & legacy of the Women Flower Sellers on Grafton Street and their relationship to the city.

The film is funded through the Arts Council’s Artist in the Community Scheme Project Realisation Award, managed by Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts. The Women Flower Sellers of Grafton Street Film is produced by Common Ground.

The film explores the creativity & artistry of the women as both business women and florists; this is a skill of street traders often not explored. This work is the primary income of these women which supports them and their families. It can also be seen as a reversal of domestic roles as the women’s partners run the home while the women work on the street face to face with their customers and the pedestrians of Grafton Street.

During Patricia’s research in studio 468 she discovered that, the famous American photographer, Lee Miller, while on an assignment for Vogue, took a photo of Teresa Reilly, the current flower seller’s grandmother. This photo is housed in the National Gallery of Ireland’s collection, and the flower sellers’ viewing of the photograph in the archives was filmed for the documentary. The original Vogue magazine is in the UCD Special Collection archive.

This 40 minute short film combines all of these elements plus the stories of the women and a performative script reflecting a critical part of Dublin life and the role of working class women.

The film has been selected for the Dublin International Film Festival 2026.

For the most up-to-date news on this project, follow the Instagram page.

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MARKING 25

Ger Nolan — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 12:33:46 +0000

Common Ground has been working across the communities of Inchicore, Rialto and Bluebell since 1999. To mark and acknowledge our work throughout the last 25 years we have begun to organise our archive, which will be handed over to the National Library of Ireland in 2025.

Alongside the archive we have created the commission MARKING 25 to celebrate the 25 years of work with artists and the community. This is in particular response to the breadth of audiovisual documentation housed in the archive.

We have commissioned artists Frank Sweeney and Veronica Dyas to work together on site with full access to Common Ground’s archive. This collaborative artistic commission will draw from archive paper files along with the audiovisual documentation in the archive, creating a written/film/art work.

Frank is an artist with a research-based practice, using found material to approach questions of collective memory, experience and identity through film and sound.

Veronica is an artist working primarily through new text, installation and performance.

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Collective Futures 2025: January – July

Ger Nolan — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 11:57:56 +0000

Aaron Sunderland Carey was awarded Common Ground’s Collective Futures residency in studio 468, from January to July 2025 in collaboration with Rialto Youth Project.

This collaborative arts process and project, An Uile Dhuine tackled critical issues facing working-class communities including racism, class conflict, and the growing threat and influence of far-right extremism.

Based in studio 468 in St Andrews Community Centre, Rialto Dublin 8, Aaron and Rialto Youth Project sought to create a space for dialogue and collaboration, empowering young voices and promoting solidarity that aims to equip young people with the awareness and tools that fosters a more inclusive and accepting society.

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Collective Futures 2024

Ger Nolan — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 14:26:23 +0000

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The Just City – Spatial Justice in Dublin 8

Ger Nolan — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 11:48:43 +0000

In March 2022, as part of Maynooth University’s Social Justice Week, a series of blogs were published written by staff and students from the Department of Geography. Karen Till was editor of ‘Spatial Justice in Dublin 8’ blog series published in partnership with Common Ground.

All the blogs can be accessed here.

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