This Being Where We Live
By Inklinks and Nathan O’Donnell
Publication launch and performance
Saturday 29 June 2019 | 2 - 3.30pm
Location | Clondalkin Library

South Dublin Arts Office in collaboration with the Clondalkin Arts Festival is pleased to present the launch of This Being Where We Live.

This Being Where We Live is a publication produced in collaboration with members of Inklinks and writer Nathan O’Donnell. Inklinks is a writing group for young people based at Collinstown Park Community College. Over the past six months, Nathan O'Donnell worked with students to produce an assemblage of new writing, images, archival materials, collective manifestos, and protest posters, that reflect their sense of their surroundings and their connection to the places they call home.

You are invited to join writer Nathan O’Donnell, members of the Inklinks group, and a number of writers and poets from Clondalkin as they read their work at a reception at the Clondalkin Library. This event is part of Clondalkin Arts Festival and takes place on Saturday 29 June from 2 – 3.30pm.

This project saw participants take part in writing, photography and journalism exercises, getting hands-on experience with letterpress and other forms of printing, and learning about the history of paper, publishing, and print in Ireland. The programme, designed to respond to the environment of Clondalkin, encouraged students to think about place, community, and activism. The publication This Being Where We Live is the result of this process.

This Being Where We Live is the culmination of a long-running public art project, The Mill, commissioned under IN CONTEXT 4 - IN OUR TIME, South Dublin County Council’s Public Art Programme for 2016-2019 under the Per Cent for Art Scheme.

The Mill involved a programme of research focused on the legacy of the strikes and occupations that took place at the Clondalkin Paper Mill in 1982-3. This project looked at connections between paper-making, print culture and protest. With the students of Collinstown Park Community College, this legacy and history was explored; forming their own weekly Action Group. The students along with Nathan O’Donnell looked at the problems, the politics, and the possibilities presented by the places where they live.