FOR AGES 2 – 4 YEARS.
Órla Kelly and Deirdre Rogers are visual artists with a practice that creates poetic visual experiences for early years children and their guardians. For Ready, Steady Show, Deirdre and Órla have created new interactive work for very young children that will invite our youngest and most curious adventurers to explore colours, sounds and story. Using materials such as card from Recreate and a familiar tradition of storytelling, Órla and Deirdre will create playful engagements including a giant book with some tall tales and cosy spaces for big eyes to investigate and experience the Civic in a new and exciting way.
ABOUT THE CREATORS:
Órla Kelly is a visual artist, creative educationalist and arts manager with a specific practice that focuses on working with early years children, aiming to stimulate and support the naturally creative, poetic, philosophical and curious intelligences of the young child. She is the co-founder and director of Early Childhood Creativity, an initiative that promotes creative thinking and activity in early years children and their parents, and supports artists and educationalists to develop specific and creative ways of working with early years children (0-6 years). Órla has worked with children for over fifteen years creating work in Ireland and Europe. She is currently working in partnership with Fingal Arts Office and Scoil Bhride Cailini in Blanchardstown, as artist-in-residence in Room 13 Inquiry, a unique arts-in-education programme that aims to encourage intellectual diversity. Her own education includes a Diploma in Psychology from Maynooth, a Degree in Fine Art from Limerick and a Masters in Arts Management from Cambridge.
Early Childhood Creativity aims to stimulate creative thinking and activity in early years children and their parents, and to support artists and educationalists to develop specific and creative ways of working with children in their early years. At the heart of Early Childhood Creativity lies a creative cross pollination of artists, educationalists, researchers; both creative and academic, and those experienced with play therapy and child psychology, to create an environment of shared knowledge and experience, dedicated to the creative development of very young children, their guardians and their educators.
Deirdre Rogers is a visual artist, designer and educator. Her involvement in teaching programmes over the last 16 years has strengthened her interest in integrating creativity in all learning environments. Understanding the need to nurture creativity from a very young age her early year’s workshops focus on adult and child participation, encouraging interaction through activities that are inclusive, meaningful and fun. As Art Director for ReCreate, Deirdre is instrumental in facilitating quality creative programmes with schools, early years and community groups nationwide. Through collaborative engagement her aim is to assist parents, teachers and carers to develop the skills and confidence to engage in artistically rich experiences with those in their care.
ReCreate is a social enterprise who supply art and educational materials to every sector of the community. From their Warehouse Of Wonders (WOW) in Dublin they salvage clean, unwanted materials such as paper, cardboard, tiles, bottles, plastic and fabric from over 220 businesses across the country. These are then available to members of ReCreate for all kinds of creative purposes. The concept is known as Creative Reuse and through their workshops ReCreate encourage young and old to reuse materials that would normally be thrown away, inspiring curiosity and inventiveness while also caring for the environment.
