A Question of Degree

A Question of Degree – Climate Change in Coastal Communities – July-September 2019

Zoë Uí Fhaoláin Green has been awarded this year’s Summer Residency at Siamsa Tíre. This residency aims to reflect creatively on the impact of Climate Change on Siamsa Tíre’s local community and to use cultural practice as an interface to communicate an imagined future with a local and international audience.

Born in Hull, Yorkshire, Zoë Uí Fhaoláin Green studied at Wyke College (Hull), the University of Wales in Aberystwyth and most recently at the Crawford School of Art in Cork. For the past 12 years, she has been living and working in West Kerry.

Zoë’s practice covers a wide range of artforms, particularly dance and visual arts. She has made artworks, films and performances with groups of children and people with special needs. She is a skilled and experienced visual artist, dancer and facilitator, and works in a range of media including drawing and film.

Most recently, Zoë performed in Cláirseach ina dTost (The Harp Silenced) devised and performed by Giorria theatre collective at the Mick Lally Theatre in Galway in May of this year. As part of Féile na Bealtaine 2019, Zoë took part in Tógra 8 Project 8 where eight artists created micro residencies throughout Dingle. In 2017 and 2018, Zoë produced A Walk In My Shoes, a project with the Dingle Camphill Community with an award from Create’s Artist in the Community Scheme.

Zoë is passionate about nature and biodiversity and tries to live sustainably. Her work increasingly focuses on environmental issues and she believes that we can learn deeply through engagement in creative activities. In responding to the brief of the residency which focuses on the challenge that climate change represents to coastal communities, Zoe plans to engage with the local community in Tralee and around Siamsa Tíre. She hopes to nurture a cultural shift in understanding and initiate a call to action in an enjoyable and inclusive manner.

Context And Brief For The Residency

Over the last number of years, Siamsa Tíre has been working to reduce its environmental impact, in particular, its carbon footprint.

The organisation is located in Tralee, Kerry’s County Town, within a very short distance of the sea. Climate Change will have a potentially very significant impact on towns like Tralee if sea levels rise as much as is predicted, and on organisations like Siamsa Tíre which is situated in an area at risk from future flooding.

As a cultural institution, and as part of our Greening Siamsa initiative, we want to support artists who creatively address the culture shift which will be necessary in order to adequately confront Climate Change.