news

Listening to the City

June 2019, Dublin City

As part of The Citizen Cycle Michelle Browne has produced a programme of Alternative Audio Guides for Dublin called Listening to the City: three writers commissioned to write and record audio guides for Dublin (Louise Williams, Louise Bruton and Francis Halsall). The Citizen Cycle is funded by the Arts Council, Watershed's Creative Producers International Investment Fund and Dublin City Council, with further support from Create, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios and Cycling Ireland. Photography by Joseph Carr.

The Citizen Cycle

February-June 2019, Dublin City

The Citizen Cycle is a collaborative arts programme curated by Michelle Browne as part of the Velo-City International Cycling Conference 2019 hosted by Dublin City Council. Three artists have been commissioned to look at cycling city infrastructure and inclusion in the city (James Ó hAodha, Rhona Byrne and Cliona Harmey). The Citizen Cycle is also composed of the programme Listening to the City: three writers commissioned to write and record audio guides for Dublin (Louise Williams, Louise Bruton and Francis Halsall). The programmes will all converge for a presentation to the public on the week of the conference (24th-28th June) and more specifically during the Velo-City Cycling Parade on 26th June. The Citizen Cycle is funded by the Arts Council, Watershed's Creative Producers International Investment Fund and Dublin City Council, with further support from Create, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios and Cycling Ireland. Photography by Joseph Carr.

City Change Masterclass: Call for participants

29-31 May 2019, Dublin City

As part of ‘The Citizen Cycle’, a collaborative arts programme curated by Michelle Browne as part of the Velo-City International Cycling Conference: ‘Cycling for the Ages’, a 3-day masterclass is offered for 15 producers, artists, designers, architects and community organisers and activists who are interested in working in the built environment. It will be hosted by significant international practitioners: Leticia Lozano, Ryan Swanson, Kate Stewart and Pete Vance. The masterclass will explore ways to engage with the city to effect change, while looking at methods and approaches to working with city councils and various stakeholders to achieve their aims. The Citizen Cycle series of collaborative arts commissions is funded by the Arts Council, Watershed's Creative Producers International Investment Fund and Dublin City Council, with further support from Create and Temple Bar Gallery and Studios.

The Mothership Project - Satellite Findings: Publication Launch

16 May 2019

The Mothership Project is a network of parenting artists in Ireland of which Michelle Browne is part of. On May 16th they launched their publication on the research they have undertaken into the lives of parenting artists since 2018. A survey was carried out with over 140 respondents from across the country and highlighted the difficulty of maintaining an art career as a parent in Ireland. The Mothership Project aims to support parenting artists in the development of their practice and to encourage arts organisations to make the art world a more inclusive place for artists with children.

Final Bring Your Own Chair projects begin

6th April

The community of Ballyhack (Wexford) embarked on the Passage East Car Ferry for Bring Your Own Chair on 6th April 2019 at high tide. Wearing blue and green, the participants came with their chairs and took part in a giant Mexican -or ‘Wexican’- wave led by Michelle Browne. While enjoying an amazing view of the estuary, the participants engaged in a beautiful moment of community gathering and celebration. Photography by Ros Kavanagh.

Bring Your Own Chair Spring Events

6th April in Ballyhack, Wexford

The final phase of Bring Your Own Chair begins with a visual and participative event in Ballyhack in Wexford at high tide, just after 6pm on Saturday, April 6. Members of the community are invited to wear blue and bring their own chair and board onto the Passage East Ferry at Ballyhack. The ferry will go out onto the estuary and instead of heading straight to Passage East it will reorientation so that people have a view up the estuary. Particpants will be invited to do a little Mexican, or more like Wexican, wave as part of the event. This event connects to the strong traditions the people of Ballyhack village had to salmon fishing on the estuary for generations and how they lived by the tides. After Ballyhack, equally visual events are planned across the three counties and will be engaging with the various communities to help make these happen.

Terra Firmish

17 March 2019

Michelle Browne is collaborating on the creation of ‘Terra Firmishʼ , a new musical work commissioned by St Patrick’s Festival. Incorporating visual designs from her research, Michelle is partnering with the composer Seán Mac Erlaine and the dancer Emma O’Kane to deliver a poetic interpretation of the history of Teampall Caomhán, a tenth century church on Inis Oírr. Accompanied by harp (Maeve Gilchrist), marimba, percussion, (Alex Petcu), clarinet, and electronics (Seán Mac Erlaine ).

Michelle Browne receives Project Funding from The Arts Council

for The Citizensʼ Cycle, February - June 2019

Michelle Browne receives funding from the Arts Participation Project Award to develop ‘The Citizensʼ Cycleʼ, a large-scale collaborative arts commission echoing the international Velo-City Cycling Conference hosted by Dublin City Concil in June 2019. ‘The Citizensʼ Cycleʼ looks at cycling city infrastucture and inclusion in the city through three arts commissions. The artists (James O hAodha, Rhona Byrne, Cliona Harmey) work with various communities (in parternhip with Bealtaine, An Taisce, Fluid Edge), to develop a series of public performative projects. They will all culminate at the Velo-City Cycling Parade on 26th June. A Masterclass is also organised in May (29th-31st) to foster greater capacity in the arts community in Dublin to deliver projects in and for the city.

Creative Producers International - Investment Fund

for The Citizensʼ Cycle, February - June 2019

Michelle Browne receives fund from The Creative Producers International for her ambitious project exploring cycling in the city and its infrastructure: ‘The Citizensʼ Cycleʼ. The three collaborative arts commissions curated by Michelle fulfill the objectives of the CPI Investment Fund to ‘provoke, inspire and engage people in ocnversations about city changeʼ.

Dublin City Council Arts Grant

for The Citizensʼ Cycle, February - June 2019

Michelle Browne is delighted to announce that ‘The Citizensʼ Cycleʼ also received funding from Dublin City Council Arts Office. By supporting these collaborative arts comissions, DCC, host of the International Velo-City Conference ‘Cycling through the Agesʼ, enables a potential discussion between policy makers and artists raising the voice of citizens, from experienced to novice cyclists.

Creative Producers International - Tokyo Lab

Monday 24th - Friday 28th September 2018

Michelle Browne will take part in Creative Producers International Tokyo Lab from 24-28 September 2018. The Lab will continue the programme of Creative Producers International to build capacity in the cohort to become change makers in their city. Alongside her peers, Michelle will deliver a bespoke city experince for delegates at the Making the City Playable Tokyo Conference on the 29th of September, which looks at how to bring play into the development of imaginative new ideas for urban spaces, engaging communities to think about the future of Tokyo.

Mná na hÉireann

added to The Arts Council Collection

Mná na hÉireann acquired for the Arts Council Collection. Mná na hÉireann is a sound installation with carved wooden table, that looks at women’s engagement with public political life in Ireland. Made during the 2016 introduction of gender quotas for selection of political candidates in Ireland, Browne interviewed a variety of women who have run for public office in Ireland to gain insight into their motivations for getting involved in politics. Interviewees include President Mary Robinson, Senator Ivana Bacik, Lynn Boylan MEP and Frances Fitzgerald, recent Táiniste. The work focuses on the politicising moment for women that drew them into public life and their mentors or supporters on the way. Moreover, it looks at the continued existence of article 41.2 in the constitution designating the special place of women in the home, considering the home as a site of political activity by highlighting campaigning or activism that was undertaken from the home by women. Mná na hÉireann is a non-partisan look at women's engagement in politics. The work gives us a portrait of a nation over the past 40 years to the present, in particular women’s position and role within Irish society in that time.

Bring Your Own Chair

Public Participative Project in the South East Region

Michelle Browne will work with communities and individuals over the next six months to create a portrait of 12 small towns and villages across counties Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford. Towns and villages include Kilmacthomas, An Rinn, Tallow and Passage East (Waterford); Ballyhack, Taghmon, Buncloady, Courtown (Wexford); and Cuan, Goresbridge, Slieverue and Kells (Kilkenny). Town Workshops and an international residency programme will be announced over the coming weeks.

Bring Your Own Chair is funded by the Arts Council Ireland Making Great Art Work - Open Call Award and with further support from Create Ireland/Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme, Design & Crafts Council of Ireland, Waterford Council, Kilkenny Arts Office, County Wexford and Kilkenny LEADER Partnership. Photo credit: Patrick Browne

Town Traits: Alternative Census

Part of Meet you at the green?, curated by Callan Workhouse Union

Public Event - 11 November 2017

A census records data about a people. A census doesn't often tell us how we inhabit our towns or what we do for fun! On Saturday the 11th of November, Michelle Brown invites the people of Callan to take part in an alternative census of the town. Town Traits: Alternative Census will create a picture of the hidden stories and some of the often invisible social networks that exist in the town. The People of Callan are invited to be counted on this one day event where Callan's ways of coming together and interacting are captured as part of this photographic portrait of the town. Town Traits: Alternative Census is part of Meet You At The Green?, a Trasna Productions project produced by Callan Workhouse Union, funded through the Arts Council of Ireland Arts Participation Project Award.

Creative Producers International

Three year programme with Watershed, Bristol

Workshops - 2 - 21 October 2017

Michelle Browne has been selected from over 500 applications worldwide to take part in Creative Producers International, a three-year programme designed specifically to build the capacity of Creative Producers as city change-makers, supporting them to engage communities and deliver public-space projects that inform the evolving dynamics of their city. Creative Producers International is a new global talent development programme led by Watershed in Bristol. The programme expands the work and ethos of Playable City, which has been adopted across five continents and puts people and play at the heart of the future city..

Michelle Browne selected as part of The Arts Council Open Call Prgramme 2018

Michelle Browne and Callan Workhouse Union have been selected as part of the Arts Council of Ireland Open Call Programme for 2018. Open Call is an Arts Council programme which funds ambitious, once-off artistic projects by some of Ireland’s best artists and arts organisations. Browne and CWU will present Bring Your Own Chair, a performance in public space in 12 acts, across 12 small towns and villages in the South East region (counties Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford). The project is will develop in distinct stages through participatory design, craft and performance workshops and residencies. As the heart of our small towns face decline, Bring Your Own Chair looks to reclaim public space for collective experience and action. Bring Your Own Chair asks what can art do to contribute to the reactivation of public space as an agora – an arena for civic engagement?

Meet You At The Green?

New Commission, Callan, Co. Kilkenny, curated by Callan Workhouse Union

Workshops - Thursday, 6th July 2017

Michelle Browne will present a newly commissioned work as part of Meet You At The Green? curated by Callan Workhouse Union, a developing facility for art, design, research and community activities in Callan, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland.
Meet You At The Green? explores our common landscape and built environment, highlighting the resources available for people to gather and activate our town centres. Michelle Browne will lead a workshop focusing on how people move around Callan. With the help of the local towns people she will gather routes and stories, shortcuts and secrets about how the inhabits make Callan their own. Through this research she will develop a new participative work for the town that will be presented in Autumn 2017.

Now Thus Now Thus

part of The Invisible City, Alexandra Business Park, St. Helens, UK

November 2016 commissioned by Heart of Glass

Michelle Browne will present a newly commissioned work Now Thus Now Thus as part of The Invisible City, commissioned by Heart of Glass, an agency for collaborative and social arts practice based in St Helens, Merseyside, UK.
Now Thus Now Thus is a semi fictional tour through Alexandra Park, the site of the Pilkingtons Glass heaquarters and factory that existed in the town of St. Helens for over 200 years. For more infromation about the work go to

My Brilliant Friend 1st July - 3rd September 2016

Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin

Michelle Browne will present Mná na hÉireann as part of My Brilliant Friend at Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin from 1st July - 3rd September 2016. The exhibition is curated by Rayne Booth and features the work of Michelle Browne, Avril Corroon, Ella de Búrca, Lisamarie Johnson, Laugh a Defiance. The exhibition considers female solidarity, work, economy, protest and how to negotiate life in Dublin as an artist and a woman in 2016. The art works that result come from a context of crisis, injustice, disappointment, and yet they show humour, warmth, solidarity, generosity.

Artworks - part of Carlow Arts Festival 10 -19th June 2016

VISUAL and St Patrick’s College, Carlow, Ireland

Michelle Browne will present Mná na hÉireann as part of ART WORKS, the 37th annual open submission exhibition and art prize. Running for 10 days at VISUAL and St Patrick’s College. The exihibition will also features work by artists selected from open submission as well as 5 invited artists. This year ART WORKS has been selected by Annie Fletcher, Senior Curator, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven & Claire Feeley, Producer Barbican, London.

Kathleen Lynn: Insider on the Outside March 26-24 April 2016

Ballinglen Art Foundation Gallery, Ballycastle, Co. Mayo

Michelle Browne will present a newly commissioned work as part of this group exhibition across the county of Mayo. The exhibition takes Kathleen Lynn as its starting point, and Browne will present a work that deals with the politicization of women and their role in politics in contemporary Ireland. The exhibtion is curated by Catherine Marshall and funding by The Arts Council of Ireland.

Upcoming Project

Border Crossings
SASA Gallery, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia
Border Crossings (Ireland/Australia) brings together curators and visual artists from Ireland and Australia to respond to cross-cultural issues surrounding the legacy of colonialism & the challenges of reconciliation that are relevant to both countries.
Curators: Michelle Browne & Mary Knights
Irish performance artists: Michelle Browne, Sandra Johnston, Dominic Thorpe
Australian artists: Sue Kneebone, Julie Gough, Yhonnie Scarce
Launch 6pm Wednesday 2 March 2016
Guest Speaker: The Honourable, Mr Noel White, Irish Ambassador to Australia
Image: Sandra Johnston & Dominic Thorpe, Due Process 2, performance, Third Space Gallery, Belfast, 2011.

Past work

New and Past work is being added to this site regularly. Click on projects or info below for more information.