Limerick festival lights the way in tackling climate change through the arts
Future Limerick: Climate Arts Festival curators Hildegard Ryan and Eva O’Connor from Sunday’s Child Theatre. Phtographs: Diarmuid Greene
This multidisciplinary arts collaboration is the result of a partnership between Sunday’s Child Theatre Company and Lime Tree Theatre | Belltable in Limerick.
It’s one of five arts projects nationwide supported by a creative new climate awareness initiative from ESB. The €250,000 ESB Brighter Future Arts Fund aims to drive positive community engagement in climate change and sustainability.
Future Limerick will engage the public in discussions around climate change and examine what a more sustainable future looks like through a range of art forms, while also engaging with disadvantaged communities in Limerick through workshops and outreach initiatives.
Sunday’s Child Theatre Company was founded by writer and performer Eva O’Connor and director Hildegard Ryan. The pair have worked together for almost a decade, addressing social issues through their work and winning a slew of awards along the way.
Afloat, a play written by O’Connor and directed by Ryan, will be staged as part of the festival programme. It takes place after the climate apocalypse has hit. Dublin is completely underwater, the ocean has died and the food chain has started to break down. Afloat prompts audience members to question their own role in — and response to — climate catastrophe.
“We wanted to find the most terrifying, shocking facts to disturb the audience and we ended up disturbing ourselves,” says Ryan.
Other events on the programme include REIC, a bilingual spoken word event featuring poetry, rap, music and storytelling, and Sustainability: The Next Generation, a conversation with Manchán Magan and climate activist Saoirse Exton, hosted by activist Ceara Carney.
Scratch Night is an evening of short plays themed around the climate crisis, celebrating exciting and innovative new work by writers from Limerick and beyond.
In all, the aim is to use art and creativity to engage the wider community on the issues of sustainability and climate change, and to spark debate about what a low-carbon future could look like.
“When Hildy and Eva approached us it was a given that we would support them,” says Louise Donlon, executive director of Lime Tree Theatre | Belltable. At the time she had been working with a consultant to reduce both venues’ carbon footprint.
“One of the things that has always struck me is that as an individual you can feel that the problem is so huge, so global, that sometimes you despair at how each of us, as an individual can address it. But it’s not just you and if we each take cumulative small steps to change what we are doing, that’s how to tackle it,” says Donlon.
Art can play a key role. “Scientific numbers can bring fear and worry. Artists can bring hope and inspiration. By bringing emotion into it, by showing a sense of grief and loss, it can inspire people to make changes,” says Ryan.
Future Limerick will bring “hope and joy” too, says O’Connor, whether through music nights to an initiative that will see poets going into schools to inspire children to write poetry of their own. A family fun day at the People’s Park will see free drumming workshops and a high-flying performance from Fidget Feet, an aerial dance company.
ESB’s Brighter Future Arts Fund was the spark that helped it all take shape. “The festival couldn’t have happened without it,” says Donlon. “It’s as simple as that.”
“The idea for the ESB Brighter Future Arts Fund came in 2020 when we were looking at our response to Covid and what we could do to help communities,” says Bevin Cody, corporate reputation manager at ESB.
“We recognised a really big need in the arts community and wanted to help and support them.”
ESB worked with Business to Arts, one of its charity partners, to figure out the best way to work with the arts community in a way that aligns with its own strategy.
“We saw an opportunity around climate change, empowering communities to live in a more sustainable and efficient way and prompting that conversation,” she says.
“The arts sector has a unique capacity to engage people in really complex conversations in a creative way. We saw an opportunity to use that creative platform to reach out and start these conversations and inspire people to take positive actions of their own.”
The €250,000 ESB Brighter Future Arts Fund was established and artists and arts organisations were invited to submit project proposals for funding.
There were a number of criteria. “We wanted to support collaborative projects within communities and we wanted to see how the project would extend beyond an art installation or a performance into a deeper conversation within the community, with an outreach element that bring members of the community together. The projects selected are great examples of these,” she adds.
ESB’s strategy is a sustainability strategy, she points out.
“We have made a commitment to be NetZero by 2040. Part of that is through clean electricity but another part is through encouraging customers and communities to become more sustainable, more efficient, and to reach NetZero themselves,” says Cody.
“The whole subject of climate change and biodiversity crisis can feel overwhelming for people. This is a way to inspire people to talk about it, to see what they can do in a fresh way, and of doing so in a way that recognises the importance of arts in society generally.”
Discover more about the ESB Brighter Future Arts Fund — esb.ie
