The Ark is a Cultural Centre for Children, situated in the cultural quarter of Temple Bar, in the heart of Dublin City. The Ark was founded in 1995, as a charitable organisation. The building, which is custom built for children’s use, hosts an indoor theatre, an outdoor amphitheatre, a gallery, a workshop and an office. Equally unique to this child-centred building is the core philosophy of the organisation; that all children, as citizens, have the same cultural entitlements as adults. Since opening the doors of its venue in 1995, over 250,000 children have participated in The Ark’s creative, inspirational, playful and fun cultural programmes.

The Ark programmes artistic and cultural activities for children between the ages of 3 and 14 in the disciplines of theatre, visual arts, music, dance, literature and more recently, science, new media and technology. The Ark’s award-winning and exemplary programmes empower children as makers and doers, as well as lookers and listeners.

Children normally experience The Ark and its programmes by visiting the centre with their school or family, but The Ark has also brought their unique approach to children’s culture beyond the venue walls; to an in-situ programme in the community of Fatima Mansions with Arklink, within the context of the community’s regeneration, and to Temple Street Children’s Hospital and Our Lady’s Hospital, Crumlin with The Healing Ark. Both longitudinal and residential projects, Arklink and The Healing Ark have been evaluated, so that the learning gained by The Ark in community and hospital settings can be shared with others. The Ark has toured shows and exhibitions extensively all over the island of Ireland as well as internationally to locations including Washington DC [USA], Berlin [Germany]; Ponzan [Poland], Sint–Niklaas [Belgium] and Hanover [Germany], reaching an estimated international audience of almost 20,000 children to date.


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Since its inception, The Ark has worked with leading Irish and international artists, commissioning work which has contributed significantly to a repositioning of art for, by, with and about children on a global scale. The Ark has worked with Man Booker Prize winners Roddy Doyle and John Banville, visual artists John Kindness, Brian Bourke and Martin Gale, dancers Jean Butler and the Mark Morris Group, composer Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, new media artists Bruce Shapiro and Chico McMurtrie, among many others.

More important than the credentials of the artists The Ark works with, however, is the quality of experience for the participating children. The Ark is always delighted with the feedback they get; for example, a workshop participant, aged 10 recently remarked; “What I liked about this workshop was making friends, having fun, being myself. I liked the way we did the play with everyone’s opinion. I hope to do it again.”

Since its inception, The Ark has been supported by the Irish government and many private funders, including The Atlantic Philan-thropies, the Irish Youth Foundation, The Ireland Funds, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The Ark very gratefully relies on its annual revenue grant from The Arts Council, and the ongoing support of many private foundations and individuals to continue its ground-breaking work.

In 2005, Eina McHugh took over as Director and she is delighted to embrace the opportunities and challenges of steering The Ark into its second decade. “The Ireland Funds supported The Ark in its fledgling years, showing faith in a wonderful idea along with a willingness to back it. This support was crucial because The Ireland Funds’ enthusiasm for The Ark also galvanized other funders to contribute; committing resources to regenerative possibilities for children, so that through The Ark’s innovative programming, dreams could come true. The support of agencies like The Ireland Funds is very important to The Ark and absolutely makes a difference.”

“We believe that children’s creativity and their primal instincts towards creating are of vital relevance to the modern cultural world and society at large, and that cultural well -being is an essential part of every child’s general wellness. As adult citizens, we owe it to our younger citizens, who are dependent upon us in every way, to ensure their cultural needs are met, that their childhood is enriched, and that their imaginations and creativity nurtured. These aims are reflected in our special programme for 2007.”

In 2007, The Ark celebrates its twelfth birthday. To celebrate this, the organisation’s last year as a child, and to mark this time on the cusp of adolescence, The Ark is taking the opportunity to culturally investigate what it means to be a child in Ireland today.

A year-long programme of collaborative artistic projects, international shows, participative workshop programmes and events will take place to encourage children and artists to explore childhood experiences and express the breadth and varied nature of contemporary children’s lives through visual art, theatre, music, dance, science and design.

“Through this celebration, The Ark aims to actively involve children in creatively investigating, celebrating and expressing their ideas about what constitutes a fulfilling childhood. The Ark will encourage artists to address the theme of childhood,

looking back thematically through the lens of experience, while looking forward with childlike enthusiasm,” says Eina. The Ark will endeavour to act as a catalyst for improving every child’s access to cultural experiences on a national scale, building on The Ark’s previous outreach work in disadvantaged communities, healthcare settings and venues nationwide. Also planned are international cultural collaborations with like-minded organisations overseas, which will hopefully lead to broader, deeper, positive impacts for children worldwide.

A new and core element of the Ark’s programme for the Year of Childhood will be a Visual Arts Residency. Informed by the Ark’s essential child-centred approach, the artist will be chosen by public tender and will collaborate with a large age range and number of children over the year, exploring the broad theme of the physicality of being a child. The artist will produce their own work and work collaboratively with children, using The Ark’s dedicated workshop space as their studio, to create a major showcase exhibition at the end of the year. This project was made possible thanks to a generous donation from a foundation who wish to remain anonymous. McHugh comments: “It is this generosity of spirit which makes it possible for us to programme innovative new work with children”.

There will be a continuous workshop programme for schools and families as well as a more intense period of engagement with an identified group of children with special needs. The public exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue, which will document the children’s cultural investigation and the processes and products emerging from the year's engagement.

A key element of the 2007 programme aims to engage with, interrogate and celebrate this same turning point, or coming of age, in the lives of children. Rites of Passage is a three-part multi-disciplinary arts programme in association with the Trinity College Children’s Research Centre that will look at the moment when a child enters adolescence through a cultural lens.

This project is participatory, from a five week in-school programme to a planned five-day workshop for 12 year olds, identifying coming of age rituals from many different cultures, with the specific aim of creating an atmosphere where each child can relate these rituals to their own lives and eventually arrive at and devise their own coming of age ritual. This process will later inform a devised theatre production for 10-12 year olds to take place later in the year on the same theme.

In the field of multi-media, The Ark is also delighted to be teaming up with RTÉ Young People’s Programmes on a unique filmmaking project. The Ark and RTÉ will offer twelve 12 year olds from across the island of Ireland an opportunity to work with international film artists in creating their own one-minute film.

The children will be selected via a call on RTÉ to submit an idea for a short film. From ideas submitted, the twelve children with a diverse range of stories will travel to The Ark in July to participate in a week long workshop where their ideas will be developed, filmed and edited by themselves with the assistance of two film-makers from a unique film academy in Copenhagen (supported by UNICEF and European Cultural Foundation), who particularly work with encouraging children's expression through media as an art form.  The films will then be exhibited at The Ark, broadcast on RTÉ and will be placed on the international young people’s one-minute film network www.oneminutesjr.org.

In December 2007, The Ark will produce Beware of Storybook Wolves, adapted from the book by acclaimed children’s author Lauren Child. This adaptation was informed by a research & development workshop (Stagestruck Storybooks) in the summer of 2006 as part of The Ark’s commitment to involving children in the planning process. Children aged 10-12 worked with a professional facilitator, director and designers to explore the process of taking a story from page to stage and to look at how theatre is made. The results of the children’s workshop will be presented in an exhibition and the production will be directed by Jo Mangan of Performance Corporation.

Not content with staying at home, The Ark, like many twelve year olds, wants to get out and about! Throughout 2007 Inklings, The Ark’s highly accessible illustration, story-writing and bookbinding workshop for 8-12 year olds, will journey nationwide to festivals and art centres, exploring the theme of childhood and its innumerable facets. Its principle is to promote children as authors, through giving each child complete ownership over each stage of production, as well as to encourage children to become more confident in their own creativity. Within each festival/arts centre, the participating children will consider a different aspect of childhood for the theme of their books. At the end of 2007 the project will culminate in an online exhibition.

Reflecting The Ark’s history of high quality engagements with some of Ireland’s leading visual artists, founding Director of The Ark, Martin Drury, will curate an exhibition from The Ark’s archive of over 80 artworks to be shown in the Sligo Art Gallery in January/February. Parallel to this event, The Ark will host Beneath the Surface, a new exhibition emanating from a three-year cross-border project by Kids Own in Sligo exploring creativity through arts, technology and education, which will include elements for children to respond to and build on in The Ark.

As part of The Ark’s aim to advocate for improvements in the awareness, recognition and provision of children’s cultural activity, McHugh is planning a number of discursive events in the field of advocacy for children’s rights. Outcomes from these events will be published on The Ark website to encourage international debate. Plans include a symposium on European Children’s Theatre Practice, a round table discussion on artists in schools, and a round table discussion on science and children.

Looking beyond 2007, The Ark has identified some key sectors that the organisation believes require specific attention. One of these is children with special needs, particularly the increasing number of those with autistic spectrum disorders and behavioural patterns. In 2007/8 The Ark plans to create an innovative visual art project with a neurological element, encouraging children with autism to look artistically at how they relate to and perceive the world. An artist will work with children, supported by an international neuro-scientific advisor, on this unique collaboration

To bring this special programme to fruition in 2007, and to ensure that The Ark moves bravely into its teenage years as a leader in the provision of ground breaking artistic programmes for children, they are seeking the support of individuals and organisations who share their vision. Says Director McHugh: “To make a difference in the lives of children, The Ark needs the support and goodwill of individuals who share our passion for children’s cultural well-being and creativity. Please help us to continue to help us deliver artistic programmes which will inspire and empower new generations of children as The Ark continues to grow.”

If you would like to learn more about the work of The Ark – please visit www.ark.ie or The Ireland Funds’ website to learn more about our support of this and many other projects that make a difference in children’s lives.

The Ark Website >