An exhibition that champions the human rights of people living with intellectual disabilities.

Our Place creates access to cultural expression and cultural space by placing the ideas, talents and lived experience of people with intellectual disabilities at the centre of art-making and exhibition design. Distinct sensory areas are designed within the gallery and include group and individual seating areas. Exhibition accessibility additionally includes Lámh, braille, audio and captioned descriptions.

Within the gallery you will experience a multi-sensory installation that playfully explores themes of happiness, human rights, and belonging. The installation features a sound artwork that plays through a system of 12 speakers with adjustable volume. Alongside the sound artwork are neon and tactile light artworks.

Our Place is a socially engaged art project by artists AlanJames Burns and Sinead McCann. Co-created with Patrick Fitzgerald, David Dean, Laura Hickey. In collaboration with Afeefah Memon, Aaron Doherty, Chloe Larkin, Daniel Obina Moses, Dillon McKeon, Doris Delaney, Ethan Browne, Ethan Deane, Finhas Tekeste, Gary McEnroe, Ian Coleman Horgan, Jordan, Kate McNamara, Katie Mahony, Meagan Lyons, Michaela Firlong, Niamh Cronin, Palumi, Sam D’Allesandro, Sasha Fitzgerald, Tony Davis, Trines, Wiktoria Porebreska. Our Place, 2024, is created with Composer Peter Power, Set Designer Ciara Murnane, Producer Orla Basquille

Our Place is a collaboration between artists Sinead McCann and AlanJames Burns and St John of God Liffey Services that began as an online creative sound project titled Sound On! in 2020. Sound On! utilised accessible audio recording and editing software, fostering both creativity and digital inclusion for adults with lived experience of intellectual disability.  Sound On! was funded by the Arts Council of Ireland’s Artist in the Community Scheme, managed by Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, and was exhibited online at Headway Arts UK in 2021, funded by Culture Ireland.

In 2023, the project evolved into Our Place, a physical exhibition at Riverbank Arts Centre, that re-imagined Sound On! into an immersive experience of sound art, storytelling, and interactive design elements, funded by Creative Ireland Kildare and the Arts Council of Ireland’s Artist in the Community Scheme, managed by Create, and Riverbank Arts Centre.

In 2024, Our Place further expands working with new collaborators in Dublin and Kerry to present simultaneous exhibitions at the RHA in Dublin and Kerry County Museum.  Funded by Rethink Ireland’s Disability Participation and Awareness Fund with consultation support by Create.

Sinéad McCann (she/Her) is a multidisciplinary socially engaged artist, researcher and educator. Her practice is committed to investigating and responding to social inequality. She leads and develops complex cross sector collaborations. She works with a diverse range of people, networks, groups, researchers, artists and community organisations. Her practice is informed by and takes its cues from the lived experience of the people she works with. She works directly with and in the areas of disability, alcohol and drug addiction, homelessness, prison, mental health, men’s health, traveller health, women’s health and social care, theory and policy. This collaborative work is expressed through theatre base production, gallery based video and sculpture installation, multi-channel audio/visual site specific installation, site specific sound installation, radio programming and street and site specific performance, to relevant and appropriate audiences. She lectures part time in socially engaged art practice in the department of Sculpture and Expanded practice at the National College of Art and Design.

AlanJames Burns (They/Them) is a neurodivergent and environmental artist, curator and festival maker. Their practice is marked by collaborative, socially engaged, and site-specific projects. The focal points of their highly collaborative practice are disability, the climate emergency, and the pursuit of a just society. Burns’ projects also include; Disrupt Disability Arts Festival, an annual festival taking place on at Project Arts centre and online; Divergently Together, 2024-26 a national Creative Ireland climate action project exploring the climate crisis through the perspective of disability;

‘The Waking Walls’, 2023, an immersive audio-lament that connects Caoineadh, traditional Irish mourning practices, to understanding experiences of ecological grief.

itsourplace.ie #OurPlace