Zooom@Hugh Lane Gallery is our ambitious city-wide outreach programme with primary schools. Initiated in December 2018, this outreach project has engaged with 120 primary schools and over 3,900 children to date. As the gallery for the city of Dublin, the participating schools in our Zooom@Hugh Lane Gallery project are located throughout the five administrative areas of Dublin City Council. It is our ambition to incrementally engage year on year with every primary school in the Dublin city area.
This Zine is bursting with amazing processes that the children engaged with. See it HERE
Phase VII (Nov 2024–Jun 2025) brought together 574 children across 11 schools, through 90 engagements filled with play, laughter and discovery.
Discover the Zooom Zine 2025 here [click on the word here to see the Zine]
We started with curiosity about each child’s strengths and passions, meeting the children either through online pre-visits or in person to get to know them, and make sure they felt familiar with Hugh Lane Gallery and the artists ahead of their visit to the gallery or the workshop at their school. During each visit we carefully looked at one artwork and the children and artists had wonderful discussions, as well as sketching the artwork and finding interesting details, colours and marks. To bring each artwork to life, while visiting schools we had lots of exciting smells, curious textures and unusual objects for the children to explore. During these workshops we explored textures, movement, lights and colours. In every workshop there were lots of different ways to make art, allowing each child to find a creative process to explore in a way that excited them. Here it is not just the children that are learning and discovering, but all of us, with a shared and ongoing goal to make sure everyone can meaningfully participate with the Hugh Lane Gallery. Inspired by the artwork, the children then engaged in workshops of sculpture, painting drawing and installation.
Eimear Murphy, Project Facilitator, Zooom@ Hugh Lane Gallery.
These are the schools who took part in Phase VII:
- St Michaels HSE Sp Sch, Dublin 5
- Rutland National School, Dublin 1
- St Eithne’s Senior Girls NS, Dublin 5
- St Pauls Hospital Special School, Dublin 9
- Enable Ireland Sandymount School, Dublin 4
- St Francis Senior NS, Dublin 17
- St Michael’s House Special National School Foxfield, Dublin 5
- St Ciaran’s Spec Sch, Dublin 11
- St Canice’s GNS, Dublin 11
- St Audoen’s NS, Dublin 8
- Scoil Mhuire Ogh 1, Dublin 12
Thank you to the artists and assistants from the Hugh Lane Gallery’s freelance Artists’ Panel for contributing to the success of this project through their considerable dynamism and creativity: Anca Danila, An Gee Chan, Bex Shelford, Claire Crowley, Emma Ross Sermons, Kim Jenkinson, Laragh Pittman, Megan Scott, Michelle Hall, Roxy Manouchehri, Tamao Oka & Tori Boccarossa
