Climate Activism and Socially Engaged Art

Climate Activism and Socially Engaged Art

Panel talk: 6-8PM, Wednesday, 17th December 2025

Anthony Freeman O’Brien (Artist & Community Worker)
Seoidín O’Sullivan (Artist & Lecturer, NCAD and Creative Futures Academy)
India Ryan (Office Manager & Space Curator, Bohemian FC Climate Team)
Sophie von Maltzan (Artist, Researcher & Landscape Architect, Activist and part- time Farmer)

Climate Activism and Socially Engaged Art brings together four practitioners whose work is deeply rooted in place, participation, and environmental justice. This talk offers multiple entry points into how climate activism unfolds locally, through acts of care, civic engagement, and collective imagination.

We will explore the varied ways in which artists and community activists work with local ecologies and social networks. Our speakers will discuss how they create conditions for their work, from their own unique viewpoint; nurturing biodiversity in urban environments, fostering interdisciplinary ecological learning, facilitating grassroots climate action, or reimagining public spaces as a shared site of agency. 

The discussion will consider both practice and process: how projects emerge from lived experience; the nuances of gaining trust; and how artistic and activist approaches can uncover hidden systems, challenge extractive spatial and economic structures, and support communities in envisioning more equitable futures. Our guests will reflect on what they have learned through their work, the complexities of advocacy within cultural and civic systems, and the practical and emotional challenges of holding space in a moment of polycrisis.

It will be an evening where approaches and strategies are compared, and critically explored the role of socially engaged art in shaping climate discourse. It also opens opportunities for local community members to tell the story from their own perspective. 

We invite the wider community and communities of interest to join us in this open conversation and share their insights and perspectives. Time is set before and after the talk to gather informally. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions and share their thoughts and experiences in a relaxed exchange, blurring the usual roles of panellist and audience.

Biographies

Anthony Freeman O'Brien is a mixed-media artist and community worker based in the Liberties area of Dublin. He takes great pride in living and working within the community where he was raised. His artistic practice draws significant inspiration from his involvement in beekeeping and conducting walking tours of the Liberties. Additionally, he contributes to the community by facilitating the development of green spaces and offering educational classes on beekeeping to both adults and children.

Seoidín O’Sullivan is an artist whose research and practice explore socio-political and ecological narratives, which she re-presents through critically engaged and poetic forms across a range of art media. Seoidín works within the field of 'Critical Ecologies', fostering interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships. Using creative and participatory art methodologies, she works to reveal hidden systems, co-imagine just multi-species futures, and engage communities meaningfully in a time of climate breakdown.
Seoidín co-ordinates and teaches on the Creative Futures Academy Professional Diploma in Art and Ecology and the Sustainable Exhibition Making Certificate. She also lectures in Visual Culture and Studio Practice for First Year Studies at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), Dublin.

India Ryan is the Office Manager and Space Curator on the climate team at Bohemian Football Club. She works on the Spark project, the community climate action project which was completed in November 2025. The Spark was a capacity building project to gauge the needs of a community, laying the groundwork for the development of workers cooperatives, as a part of a wider Community Wealth Building project. By changing how money is spent in communities, we can build a more democratic local economy, creating good quality jobs to deliver on climate action across the city. 

Sophie von Maltzan is an artist, researcher, landscape architect, activist and part- time farmer specializing in environmental and socially engaged collaborative practice. Her work explores and enhances the “human-environment”  relationship through participatory, site-specific design and critical spatial practices.
Her interdisciplinary practice integrates socially engaged art, collaborative public space reclamation and climate crisis mitigation. She views the urban environment as a catalyst for social exchange and deeper connectivity with nature; her action-oriented, collaborative approach incorporates the lived experiences of communities, artists and environmental experts.
Von Maltzan has been commissioned by The Arts Council, Creative Ireland, IMMA, Percentage for art, multiple county councils and academic institutions. She has delivered public interventions, exhibitions, and curatorial projects. Her projects – usually working with social groups are investigations into critical spatial practices, often interventions into ostensibly marginal spaces such as semi-derelict sites in Dublin in the hands of property developers or small neighbourhood parks , challenging  cultural and aesthetic norms. Her work also focuses on commercial and municipal interests, asking how the city authorities can offer/ allow and encourage grass-roots-up design interventions and, ultimately, what kind of changes can be brought to the lives of the community? How public open space can be a form of agency itself?