Artist Support | Tobi Bello - Our Village Archive - Mothers of Blanchardstown

Autumn 2026 will see Artist Tobi Bello embark on a new Artist Residency with Draíocht, developing a new project as part of Our Village Archive.

Tobi self identifies as a black artist, representing an underrepresented segment of the Irish community. She is an advocate for placemaking within diverse communities, emphasising the need for creative spaces where minority voices can thrive. Draíocht has been developing a relationship with Tobi over a number of years. In 2025, she was Studio Artist in Residence, was supported to have mentorship sessions with photographer Rich Gilligan and was one of the team on our Toddler Take Over Event. Draíocht also supported Tobi by providing some funding to enable her take some time and reflect on her socially engaged practice. Through this Tobi developed a paper entitled ‘An Ethical Framework for Socially Engaged Practice’.  

Project Outline:

Our Village Archive - Mothers of Blanchardstown: A Truth-Archiving Roundtable informed by participants

This project is a relationship-led, socially engaged truth-archiving project bringing together culturally diverse and Black mothers in Blanchardstown over a series of gatherings that build trust before any public recording/viewing takes place. Across several weeks, the group will meet in Draíocht and other local settings, sharing food practices, spending time together, and gradually shaping how they want to be seen and heard. 

Through gentle portraiture and audio/visual documentation (led by participants’ comfort and consent), the women will collectively define their identities, decide what parts of their stories feel safe to share, and co-create the questions and themes that matter most to them about motherhood, selfhood, belonging, and life in Ireland.

The project culminates with a final roundtable conversation that the mothers design and lead where each participant’s representation is intentional, contextual, and self-determined. The end result is a powerful community-made archive that honours everyday truth with dignity: not a one-off interview, but a process of building connection, care, and agency, so the recorded conversation reflects how the group chooses to narrate their lives and histories on their own terms.  

A public sharing of the process and outcomes (Exhibition) will take place in Draíocht’s First Floor Gallery in 2027. 

Artist Support at Draíocht

Draíocht is recognised as a creative hub and laboratory space and invests significantly in the development of artist's practice by the provision of benefit in kind support such as space, technical support, admin/marketing support and specialist expertise. We offer a wide range of opportunities to artists i.e. commissions, residencies, artist studios/rehearsal space, co-productions, co-commissions, seed funding, mentoring.

Our Artist Support Series, launched during Covid-19, has helped 79 artists in 2020, 50 artists in 2021, 74 artists in 2022, 53 artists in 2023, 31 artists in 2024 and 71 artists in 2025, with the provision of free rehearsal and creative space. Space to rehearse, write, create, film, dance, think & plan... whatever is needed!

With thanks to our funders Fingal County Council & The Arts Council.

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