Creativity & Change at MTU Crawford

Since September 2025 I have been doing a certificate course in Creativity and Change at MTU Crawford College of Art & Design in Cork. It is an exploration of global citizen education through collaborative projects in visual and performing arts. It is such a joy to be doing it. The holistic and embodied learning model of “head, heart and hands” suits me so much - it’s just a pity I didn’t learn this kind of thing at primary school and in this way as the education is pretty foundational, addressing inequality and injustice.

Last October (pictured above) our class painted a 50 metre long mural on Sullivan’s Quay. The backdrop was inspired by the cover of the late Manchán Magan’s book, “Thirty-two WordS for Field”. The words in the centre of the mural were from James Connolly, written over a hundred years ago but still ringing true: “Let no Irishman throw a stone at the foreigner; he may hit his own clan...”.  

More recently, I have been exploring a concept called Planet on Plate - a creative toolkit to bring food sovereignty to primary school children (somewhat inspired by a reaction to the hot lunches and the missed opportunity to bring nourishment to our children). And as a group project, we are looking at ways to bring more spaces of sanctuary and nature to Cork city - so much potential here and so needed to bring back more green amongst the concrete.