Exploring New Pathways in Socially Engaged Art Practice: Artist Dee Deegan’s Creative Practitioner Bursary Journey
In Galway City, Teaching Artist Dee Deegan has spent the past year reshaping her practice in meaningful new directions. Supported by the Creative Practitioner Bursary 2025 from Galway City Council Arts Office, Dee dedicated her year to deepening her understanding of socially engaged art practice and exploring how this change of direction in her work could better support older adults in her community.
Creative Places Tuam was delighted to contribute to this developmental journey through mentoring, research support and opportunities for reflection. While the bursary period has now concluded, our collaboration with Dee continues, with plans to support her upcoming public workshop in early 2026.
A Year of Reflection, Research, and Reorientation
For Dee, the bursary offered the rare opportunity to pause and spend concentrated time rethinking her practice. Through studio-based research, reading, interviews and reflective writing, she began to notice that many principles of socially engaged arts had already been part of her work for years.
By narrowing her reading to key texts and using mentoring sessions to shape her thinking, she developed guiding questions that helped steer interviews and identify areas where her practice could grow, especially around supporting agency and deepening evaluation.
This shift in perspective was transformative. Instead of starting from scratch, Dee focused on refining the socially engaged elements already embedded in her Teaching Artist approach and looked at ways to introduce new methods identified through her research reading and interviews.
Mentorship, Shared Knowledge, and the Tuam Connection
Joanna McGlynn from Creative Places Tuam supported Dee through a tailored series of mentoring sessions beginning in June. These early conversations grounded her research, helping her untangle complex SEA theory, identify meaningful references and reflect on her existing methodologies.
A significant moment in the project came during Dee’s field trip to Tuam, where she met the Creative Places Tuam team and explored our extensive archive of socially engaged projects in Tuam Library. This visit offered Dee a chance to immerse herself in examples of long-term, community-rooted practice and compare rural and urban contexts, a contrast that became an important lens in her research.
“Reviewing the archive helped me understand socially engaged practice in a much deeper way,” Dee shared. “It showed me what’s possible across different communities and contexts.”
National & International Conversations That Opened New Doors
Dee’s interviews added valuable layers to her research. Dr. Nat O’Connor (Age Action Ireland & UCD) offered insight into the social, cultural, and structural experiences of older adults in Ireland. Eric Booth (International Teaching Artists Collaborative) contributed international perspectives on teaching artistry and generously shared wisdom from his extensive experience in this complex multifaceted role. Conversations about further international collaborations have already begun that could strengthen the links between the west of Ireland and USA via ITAC and two other potential partner organisations. This is an exciting expansion in Dee’s practice that could amplify the impact of future projects.
Looking Ahead: A Continuing Relationship
Though the bursary has ended, the work continues. Creative Places Tuam remains committed to supporting Dee as she brings her learning into the public realm.
In February 2026, Dee will host a collaborative workshop exploring the question: “How might we create safe and brave environments for older adults to flourish?”
Creative Places Tuam will support this workshop as part of our ongoing relationship, alongside Age Action Ireland and Croí na Gaillimhe. Additional connections have also formed through this project, including links with the wider Creative Places Tuam and Create team.
Dee’s bursary year has strengthened her networks, clarified the future direction of her socially engaged practice and laid foundations for partnerships both locally and internationally.
For Creative Places Tuam, it has been a privilege to support Dee during this pivotal period of artistic growth. We look forward to continuing this collaboration as her work with older communities in Galway expands.
Click here to read more about Dee and her work.
