Creatives and Artists
Ballymun is Brilliant – Ballymun Bursary 2025
Ballymun is Brilliant is excited to provide a bursary for Ballymun based Artists. The bursary invited visual artists, writers, musicians, dancers, poets, theatre makers, spoken word artists etc who are from or live in Ballymun and open to creating a piece that responds to the themes of climate action and climate justice in Ballymun.
Two bursary artists, Jen Harrington and Brendan Shanahan, were selected and will be presenting their work on Better Ballymun Day 2025. Find out more about the artists and the project below.
Jen Harrington
Jen Harrington is an early-career multimedia artist working in crochet, painting and digital media. As well as film and photograph works, Jen creates Irish crochet works and digital painting in response to themes around community, wildlife, flora, tradition, identity and death. Jen works closely with local community groups and projects she has contributed to include Phizzfest, Dublin Canvas, Ballymun is Brilliant, Meakstown Community Centre, Disrupt, The Den Youth Club and more.
Project Details
Jen’s bursary project involves photography, Irish crochet and film. In response to spaces around Ballymun including the site of the former Ballymun Shopping Centre, sculptures made of Irish crochet and wire will be created, placed on the sites, and photographed. The sculptural pieces are emblems of protection, adornment and grief articulating anxieties around climate justice in the community of Ballymun.
Through this project, Jen highlights the preciousness of biodiversity through art, not just as an aesthetic or utilitarian “resource”, but as an intrinsically valuable aspect of local and global environmental health; as an indicator of what is respected by the community; as an avatar of hope in a capitalist society which is increasingly sacrificing growing things.
The Walls Project
Brendan Shanahan
Brendan is singer songwriter and has produced a number of Albums; 2 of which are entitled Brendan’s Ireland Volumes 1 and 2. These albums consist of Brendan’s arrangements and interpretation of some well known Irish Ballads. Lead to the Water was written by Brendan and is a Christian Based Album. Recently Brendan has focused on other creative things. He has written a series of short stories in the context of his participation in the Ballymun Writer’s Group. In the recent past, he joined the Acting up Drama group in Ballymun College and wrote a short play “The Good Banshee” which was performed at the recent awards end of term ceremony. Another short play” Fuzzy Brain” was produced and shown at the Ballyfermot Community Centre 2022.
Project Details
I propose to write and record a song that will be based in Ballymun. The song will tell the story of a person living in Ballymun who was sceptical about climate change but comes to realise that Climate Action and Justice are vitally important for Ballymun and the planet. The connection will be made that “We Are One” irrespective of where we live in the Universe. The song will have the possibility of collaboration with other Artists.
It is planned to initially examine the feasibility of recording the song in the Axis Studio in Ballymun.