Background
Ireland’s climate is changing with impacts already being felt, and expected to continue and intensify, especially in coastal towns and cities, across Derry-Londonderry and Mayo, vulnerable to coastal and riverine floods. Floods and their catchments don’t abide by administrative, geographical or political boundaries, as such knowledge exchange and learning between flood-affected communities and other government, scientific and policy actors is crucial. BluePrint addresses this need using a creative co-creation process in the Derry City and Strabane District area, an All-Island learning exchange with Mayo and a creative co-creation toolkit to support actors working with communities on climate adaptation and flood resilience across the island of Ireland.
The BluePrint project is a recipient of the Creative Climate Action fund, an initiative from the Creative Ireland Programme. It is funded by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in collaboration with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The fund supports creative, cultural and artistic projects that build awareness around climate change and empower citizens to make meaningful behavioural transformations.
Aims and Activities
The BluePrint project engages flood-affected communities, in the Derry City and Strabane District Council area, from villages Eglinton and Newtownstewart, in an artistic co-creation process to share and exchange their lived-experiences around flooding and climate adaptation.
A social engaged artist creatively engaged communities to co-create an artwork to communicate their lived experiences and support wider climate resilience outreach, engagement and policy in Derry-Londonderry and beyond.
Experiences from the co-creation process in Derry-Londonderry were shared in Mayo through an All-Island two-way learning and exchange bringing together communities and other artists, government actors and scientific partners working on, or interested in, creative co-creation processes for engaging communities around climate adaptation and resilience.
Research and evaluation activities during the co-creation process in Derry-Londonderry and the learning exchange with Mayo will result in a creative co-creation toolkit targeting local governments and other professionals working with communities adapting to climate change across Ireland.
Contacts
BluePrint Project Investigator UCC/ MaREI
Email: Lcumiskey@ucc.ie
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Sara Walmsley
BluePrint project artist
Email: sarasoundplay@gmail.com