Hugh Lane City-wide project with primary schools

Zooom@Hugh Lane Gallery is our ambitious city-wide programme with primary schools. Since its inception in December 2018, over 3,400 children to date from across Dublin City have participated in our innovative city-wide project. It is our ambition to incrementally engage year on year with every primary school in the Dublin city area.

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. Initiated in December 2018, this outreach project has so far engaged with 113 primary schools and over 3,400 children to date. It is our ambition to work with every primary school in the Dublin City area.

Phase VII of the project is focusing on Inclusive Education. Starting with curiosity about each child’s strengths and passions this phase uses innovative approaches so that every student can meaningfully participate with the Gallery and its collections. Working first hand with each student and teaching staff is central, pre-visits are held at the school, a specialised workshop is then delivered at the schools or in the gallery.

Phase VI of the project ran from October 2023 to June 2024 with 26 primary schools and 901 children participating. This phase engaged with 5 Special Education Schools.

Phase V of the project ran from April to June 2023 with 10 schools participating and saw 350 children engaging with the gallery, many for the first time. There were 12 online pre visits to schools led by the project facilitator and 21, in-person, artist led workshops looking at 13 different artworks from the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions. Of the visiting schools, 6 were DEIS (designated disadvantaged) and 4 were non-DEIS.

About Zooom@Hugh Lane Gallery: Through this project we create imaginative and impactful connections between primary school children, their teachers and the Hugh Lane Gallery, its collection, and temporary exhibitions through close looking, discussion, sketching and art workshops designed and led by artists from the Hugh Lane’s artists panel. The project name Zooom stems from the aspiration to look closely at sometimes overlooked aspects of an artwork as inspiration for creating new work. The project includes a pre-visit (online or in-person) to the participating schools when the children are introduced to the project and artworks from the Gallery. Next is a visit to the Hugh Lane Gallery to look at, discuss and sketch artworks in the galleries followed by an artist-led workshops in the Hugh Lane’s dedicated education studio space where the children make artwork in a variety of media inspired by the artwork in focus. Phase I-IV & VI saw green screen animation used to capture each sessions’ creative outputs, in Phase V the children explored Zines as a way to share their creations. Phase VII Zine with expand on how the artwork was created. Feedback is actively encouraged and gathered from participating teachers and children and their responses as well as the artwork made demonstrates the significant positive impact the project is having.

Zooom@HughLaneGallery project concept curated by Jessica O’Donnell, Head of Education and Community Outreach, e. [email protected] and Liliane Puthod, Project Facilitator (Phases I & II).

Eimear Murphy Project Facilitator (Phase VI & Phase VII)

Jane Fogarty Project Facilitator (Phase III, IV & Phase V 2023)

Liliane Puthod, Project Facilitator (Phases I & II)

Kimberly Griffith, Project Facilitator (Phase III)