The aim is to promote the idea of leaving the car at home and considering alternate means of more sustainable transport in the spirit of caring for the Earth.
JOANNE DONOHOE
She studied Fine Art in Dun Laoghaire College of Art Design and Technology and Carlow IT and has studied craft in Grennan Mill Craft School, Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny and has been a practicing Artist and Youth Theatre facilitator for over 20 years and Artistic Director and set designer for WACT youth theatre. She facilitates online classes in Art and Design, Poi, Theatre and Prop Making, Creative Writing and Set design. Joanne has designed the set for 24 shows with full casts of young people has worked on over twenty plays starring young people from all over County Wexford. Joanne loves working through collaboration and storytelling and she believes that problem solving and creative discussion can be effective and great fun when approached through theatre games and workshops.
Currently Joanne is teaching set design online as part of the JCT Play Create Perform initiative in collaboration with Youth Theatre Ireland and she is co-directing two one act plays that members of WACT youth theatre. As an ACT Waterford Creative during Act 1 she held multiple workshops and a photo project.
As part of Imagine Arts Festival a bird box making workshop was held in St.Patricks nursing home with the residents using cardboard paintable birdhouses, realistic decorative birds, craft flowers, leaves and markers. Creating the Bird houses prompted a great conversations about their homes, both old and new, times gone by and their methods of transport from bikes to buses to shanks’ mare!.
Batik Workshops where residents of Dunmore road were able to enjoy the medium of wax and dye and use it as a way to discover the potential in Batik and in themselves as expressive artists no matter what their experience is to date.
As part of Harvest Festival, a fun Art of Poi workshop was conducted for both young and old at St Georges Court. The workshop was on making traditional Māori Poi an Art that increases flexibility and strength in hands and arms as well as coordination which is fun and easy to make!
As a part of the Take a Bus for A Change project posters on the Dunmore Road Bus Shelters were put up after Joanne Donohoe talked to the residents of Dunmore Road getting their stories about taking the bus.
Project Updates
CD’s & CO2 – Joanne Donohoe at Spraoi
ACT 2 took the streets of Waterford City during the incredible 2024 SPRAOI festival. ACT creative Joanne Donohoe took part in the Calmast/SETU stand with incredible engagement from the crowds. At the drop in workshop little artists made recycled art from CD cases with images that illustrated the conversation around how high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere effect our climate.
“How the Earth works to manage this is amazing, we rely so much on our oceans and trees especially to keep the Earth cool and all life as we know it depends on it”, commented Joanne. It was a pleasure to watch the children be so engaged!
Rain Sticks at the Deise Men’s Shed
Joanne Donohoe has been working with the Deise Men’s Shed as another strand of creative climate action project.
Take the Bus for a change with Schools – Average Ordinary Everyday Superhero
With funding from Creative Ireland Waterford, Joanne ran a series of 6 workshops in 3 schools on the Dunmore Road, the original location for ‘Take the Bus for a Change’ project. The idea underpinning this was students would create a superhero cape from canvas using techniques such as painting, batik and collage based on the theme of sustainable living. Not only will cape represent the students artistic expression; it will also symbolise their commitment to sustainable living and conscientious decision-making. The concept of the “Average Ordinary Everyday Superhero” cape resonated with the students as it highlighted the notion that every action, no matter how small, has the potential to make a difference.
Earlier in the Creative Ireland project, the participants learnt about emissions through a team game and create collaborative drawings to process and chat about what they learned. The participants chose their own subject to research. Everything from Komodo Dragons to Reefs to football to Make up. They researched how their subject contributed positively and negatively to climate change. Discussed their part in it and what they could do to help and then made Zines from the research as a way to inform others.
Finally each school made a canvas (one was thrifted from a charity shop) and placed their trees they drew in the first workshop so that it became a unique forest. It was a collaborative piece and after the tree drawings were added the students coloured in the trees. The final message was that every mark you make matters in the World.
Take the Bus for a Change Exhibition
In partnership with Educate Together and the Gaelscoil, Joanne delivered four workshops on the carbon cycle. Students engaged with the artwork through games, drawing, and discussions about climate change and their journeys to school.
Each session included around eighteen students and featured interactive activities, including teamwork games and sound-making with rain sticks and thunder boards.
The exhibition ran until the end of January, with late openings on Thursdays, and included interactive elements encouraging public participation.