Dublin Fringe Festival Announces Room To Create Residency
Finding space to make work in Dublin? Not easy.
Artists are constantly up against it, and we see that struggle every day. As a year-round charity and artist support organisation, we’re all about helping creatives in whatever way we can. That’s why we’re opening our office and handing over space to artists with ambitious ideas and big vision. We were blown away by the quality of applications we received through recent open calls, so much so that we’re launching the Dublin Fringe Festival: Room to Create Residencies.
We’ve chosen nine artists who will each take over an office at Fringe HQ for two weeks, giving them time and headspace to experiment, explore, and dive deep into their projects. Plus, they’ll receive support from the Dublin Fringe Festival Team to bounce ideas, get feedback, and push their work to the next level while they’re here.
The 2025 recipients of this residency are: Al Bellamy, Clodagh Assata Boyce, Dylan Montgomery, Emma Finegan, Favour Oluwaseunla Odusola, Hannah Gumbrielle, Joan Somers Donnelly, Kevin Murphy, Oluwatobi.
Al Bellamy is a neurodivergent, working class director from Wexford. Their directing credits across film and theatre include: The Amanda (Saoirse) Show (The DLR LexIcon Theatre, 2022), The Merrow (Project Arts Centre, Short Cuts Award, 2022), Yellow (Draíocht Arts Centre, Granary Theatre, Neuroconvergence, National Festival of Youth Theatres, Bounce Disability Arts Festival) from November 2022 to September 2024, and Close All Tabs (Smock Alley Boys School, Scene + Heard Festival 2024). They were Director and Co-Lead Artist with Jody O'Neill for Cork Midsummer & SUISHA Inclusive Arts Organisations' Be Part project in 2023. They continued as Director of this production, Home Sweet Home, which premiered in the Granary Theatre Cork in Cork Midsummer Festival 2024.
In 2022, they were funded by the Arts Council Agility Award for Mythics, creating a space for neurodiverse people to explore and discuss reworkings of Irish Folklore and Mythology. In 2023, they received the Arts Council Theatre Bursary to develop a holistic methodology for disability-inclusive productions. They also gave a Masterclass in Disability Inclusive Theatre in the Eduard Smilgis Theatre, Riga, Latvia, and created and led Embedding Access: A Workshop for Disability Inclusion in association with Draíocht Arts Centre for Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.
Clodagh Assata Boyce is a Trini-Irish artist, curator and film programmer based between Dublin and Belfast. In their work, Clodagh critiques language, memory and modes of marginalisation through experimenting with mediums such as textiles, audio and collage. Drawing inspiration from their background in community organising and queer photography in NYC, Clodagh explores new and old ways of defining self and nation. Clodagh is presently curator-in-residence at PS2 gallery in Belfast.
Dylan Montgomery is a multidisciplinary artist, working primarily within photography, videography and graphic design. Informed by their experience finding comfort from isolation through film and television, Dylan’s personal projects deal with the conflict between the harsh reality of life and idealised reality found in fiction. Using both digital and film photography, Dylan is interested in creating worlds with vibrant colours and pop-culture motifs that bridge the gap between these two conflicting concepts and convey the comfort that can be found in hyper-realities.
Emma Finegan is a director, performer and theatre-maker. With a background in ballet and clowning, Emma is passionate about incorporating different artistic disciplines into her theatre practice. Her work as a theatre-maker has been supported by the Art Council, Dublin Fringe Festival, L.D Dance Shawbrook, Fishamble, CoisCéim Dance Theatre and Backstage Theatre Longford.
In 2024, Emma was Resident Artist at Lime Tree/Belltable and she also spent the year as the 2024 Literary Assistant with Fishamble. Emma’s recent directing credits include The Holding Bones (Civic Theatre, Mermaid Arts Centre, Riverbank Arts Centre, DLR Lexicon 2024) and Just A Minute (Dublin Fringe Festival 2023, Galway Theatre Festival 2024, 96 Festival London 2024). Her recent writing credits include SLIME! (Bualadh Bos Children’s Festival, Lime Tree Theatre 2024), Kildare Street (Smock Alley Theatre’s Scene and Heard Festival 2024). Recent performing credits include Who Robbed Annie Queeries (Dublin Fringe Festival 2024) and Pig Brain (Dublin Fringe Festival 2022).
Favour Oluwaseunla Odusola is a Nigerian-Irish multidisciplinary artist and cultural leader based in Dublin. A member of Dance Ireland, Create Ireland, and Theatre Forum, and serving on the Board of Directors for Dance Ireland, Favour is a passionate advocate for diversity and community engagement in the arts. His work combines storytelling, live music, and movement to explore themes of cultural integration, identity, and resilience.
As a performer, Favour has appeared in celebrated works such as Hyperactive (2024), Othello, The Wanderer, and Emma Martin’s DOLOROSA. His solo piece O Dabo, commissioned for the 2023 Dancer from the Dance Festival, showcases his innovative fusion of Afro street, African contemporary, and traditional Nigerian theatre. He is the artistic force behind Wave, a dance platform for underrepresented communities, and Jaiva, a three-day Afro-dance camp celebrating cultural exchange.
A skilled educator and curator, Favour has inspired over 300 dancers through Afro-dance workshops, building inclusive audiences and selling out productions like Ekaabo. His storytelling-driven approach is further reflected in his proposed dance theatre piece, blending Nigerian traditions with universal themes. Favour’s artistry celebrates identity, fosters connection, and empowers communities through meaningful and inclusive creative expression.
HANNAH GUMBRIELLE is an arts worker and multidisciplinary aerial artist passionate about inclusive teaching practices and making circus accessible.
She specialises in cocoon, trapeze, counterweight, and harness, exploring the topic of queerness, illness, and body image in her work. Most recently, Hannah performed her autobiographical show MALIGNANT HUMOUR, exploring the death defying circus act that is cancer treatment. It debuted at Scene + Heard to a sold-out crowd, and since she has been featured on the Oliver Callan Show, RTÉ Culture, Ireland AM, and The Independent. Malignant Humour ran for 8 sold-out and increased capacity performances at Smock Alley Theatre as part of Dublin Fringe 2024. It garnered five stars from The Irish Times and three Dublin Fringe nominations, including the First Fortnight Award, Irish Aerial Creation Centre 10 Year Anniversary Award, and Radical Spirit Award.
Coaching since 2017, she graduated in circus instruction with École Nationale de Cirque in 2019. In 2021 she began Circus Club in collaboration with St. Michael’s House, running circus classes for children with disabilities and additional needs in collaboration with their physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and early intervention specialists. Hannah has performed as part of Aduantus’ To Odin Offered, Culture Night, Taking Flight’s Create Project, the Irish Aerial Creation Centre’s Creative Intensive, and has been featured in Totally Dublin magazine. She is the recipient of an Arts Council Circus Bursary Award, a Dublin City Arts Office Bursary Award, a Dance Ireland Residency, and she is currently an Axis Assemble Artist.
Joan Somers Donnelly is a Dubin-based artist. Her practice is collaborative and moves between performance, visual art, writing and organising. Previous work includes a human choir that performed for cows; an interactive fantasy about the politics of housing in Dublin; a video essay about social spaces of gig economy workers; and performances and other invitations for lamp posts, zoom calls, U-bahn stations and apartments. She is primarily concerned with examining existing social structures and creating not-yet-existing ones, using performance and other live situations as a testing ground for experiments in different ways of relating. Much of her recent work has focused on the creation of frameworks for playful exchange and co-creation, such as the group improvisation practice messing, an Anger Club, and an interdisciplinary practice-sharing space for women and genderqueer artists called In practice(s). She is an ensemble member of experimental music and performance group Kirkos and of Outlandish Theatre Platform.
In 2023 Joan was the recipient of a Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland, and she recently received a Project Award for HEADSONG / when the world shifts, an improvisation-based performance project that will take place in 2025 in collaboration with participants living with acquired brain injuries.
Kevin Murphy is a lighting designer from Ireland based between London and Dublin and working in theatre, dance, and music. He graduated from The Lir Academy’s MFA Stage Design in 2021.
Recent design credits include Saturation (Dublin Modular), Malignant Humour (Hannah Gumbrielle), Double Act (Honey & Lemon), Bent (The Lir), Eurydice (The Lir), Red Lines (Monika Palova & Sean McIlraith), Dog Shit (Bellaray Bertrand-Webb), Ruining The Act (Emily Kilkenny Roddy), AKEDAH (Hampstead Downstairs), The Naughty Fox (Toucan Theatre), Anatomy of a Night (Nick Nikolaou), The Blue House (Helikon Theatre), Cross Street (Fregoli).
In 2023 he was awarded ‘Best Lighting Design’ at Dublin Fringe Festival for his work on Red Lines (Monika Palova & Sean McIlraith).
Oluwatobi is a Nigerian-Irish interdisciplinary artist whose work spans visual art, dance, film, and spoken word. With roots in Carlow and a background in science, fashion, and hip-hop, Oluwatobi masterfully weaves together analytical precision and creative expression to explore the complexities of identity, history, and community. Drawing on the rich traditions of Yoruba culture, non-binary concepts, and Afrofuturism, Oluwatobi's art seeks to reimagine cultural narratives and craft new global perspectives. Through a dynamic fusion of street art, abstraction, and intricate visual/mixed-media techniques, his renowned Ara series invites viewers to delve into cultural history through surreal, layered compositions that empower storytelling and challenge conventional perspectives.
Oluwatobi's work is rooted in honoring African and Irish craftsmanship while transforming heritage into contemporary expressions. By centering clothing, accessories, and other mediums as vessels of cultural dialogue, he bridges the past with the future, encouraging audiences to question what is and imagine what could be. Through his boundary-pushing creative process, he captures the essence of modern culture and the African Irish journey, offering bold, transformative visions grounded in tradition and illuminated by the possibilities of tomorrow.
Recent work, a series titled Ara focused on sculptural forms in plaster, dyed fabrics, film, and movement as a language on male fragility, need for healing, the forming of a man, and the building of the vessel these spirits inhabit