Catalyst at School

2019 - 2020

As part of Catalyst Arts’ Outreach Programme 2019/20, Catalyst at School invited six community and school groups from Belfast to take part in a series of creative workshops. Each workshop was based around one of Catalyst Arts’ major gallery exhibitions and aimed to provide access to contemporary art in exciting and engaging ways.

We were delighted to work with groups from Storehouse, Creative Kidz, St Mary’s Primary School, Belfast MET, Fane Street Primary School and St. Clare’s Primary School. Throughout the programme, the different groups were encouraged to engage directly with the gallery as a place of experimentation and learning, and find new ways of expressing themselves through creativity.

Catalyst Arts worked alongside professional artists and youth educator Hannah Walsh to facilitate these workshops. Hannah Walsh is a Belfast-based visual artist and passionate teacher. She has worked with numerous community groups and schools, using art as a medium for conversation and change. The selected artists included Jonny McEwen, Eleni Kolliopoulou, Robin Price, Paddy Bloomer and Clare McQuillan. Each artist delivered a workshop based around their own practice, introducing the groups to a wide range of disciplines including: drawing, performance art, photography, sculpture and foraging. The participants were given the opportunity to experiment with new materials and technologies to produce experimental works of art in response to the exhibitions. Together we made drawings with light, performance art from recycled clothes, generated electricity from potatoes, drew using sound and ate edible plants in the local park.

We would like to thank all of those involved in making Catalyst at School a success. Without their dedication, engagement, and creativity this project would not have been possible.

This project was kindly supported by ACNI and Halifax Foundation.

Catalyst at School Handout

Cara Farnan at St Malachy’s College

In August 2020 the artist Cara Farnan, as part of the Water Bodies exhibition, delivered our first socially distant workshop at St. Malachy’s College for Boys. Farnan is an artist based between Dublin, IE and Utrecht, NL, whose practice draws on a combination of writing, performance, sound, video, drawing and workshop facilitation.

Clare McQuillan at St. Clares Primary School

Clare McQuillan brought the classroom outdoors with a foraging workshop. The children of St. Clares primary school were brought on a walk to find edible flora under the leadership of the artist in the city’s natural habitats for plant life. McQuillan also provided a range of treats and snacks for the children to sample, made from their own foraging adventures, including pesto made with wild garlic.