Join The Arts Council of Northern Ireland for a showcase of projects which have received funding through the Rural Engagement Arts Programme, within the 2025-2026 funding period.

The event will highlight Rural Arts and provide Rural Arts organisations and artists opportunities for wider collaboration, development and partnership engagement.

An opportunity to celebrate the arts and encourage sustainability of these arts sectors.

 

The Artists

Talia McDowell

Seated contemporary dancer, passionate about merging dance and inclusion. Trained under choreographer Adam Benjamin.

Laura Mohapi

Laura mohapi is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes exploring collective approaches towards societal restoration and creative cohesion. We The Human: A Quiet Blue Wall includes an Open Call to paint and donate a monochrome self-portrait for the purpose of suicide prevention.

Aiden Dunphy

Inspire Wellbeing partnered with Omagh based community drummer Aidan Dunphy to deliver workshops in Fermanagh and Tyrone. Participants learned drumming skills and practical self-care strategies based on the ‘Take 5 Steps to Wellbeing’ framework, emphasising music and creativity’s role in reducing anxiety, enhancing resilience, and combating social isolation and loneliness.

Cat Brogan

Cat Brogan is a poet, performer and community arts practitioner from Omagh, Northern Ireland. She holds an MA in Writer/Teacher from Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work spans poetry, performance and digital storytelling, including the Arts Council NI–funded Lecky’s Legacy project, combining REAP-supported community workshops with Digital Evolution-funded augmented reality storytelling.

Natasha Duddy

Natasha Duddy’s fused glass business creates handcrafted pieces that celebrate colour, light, and texture. Working with kiln-formed techniques, she designs unique artworks, jewellery, and decorative objects. Each piece is carefully cut, layered, and fired to achieve luminous depth, combining contemporary design with traditional glassworking processes to produce distinctive, one-of-a-kind creations.

Big Telly Theatre Company

Big Telly bring world class theatre to small communities in Northern Ireland, and bring their voices to the world stage. A conduit between rural communities and urban platforms, providing a space for exchange, brokering wider conversations about the local, the global and our place in society.