A Decade of Creative Practice with Anne Sullivan Centre for the Deafblind

Ten Years in the Making

Since 2015, Laura has had the privilege of working alongside the residents, key workers and wider community at the Anne Sullivan Centre for the Deafblind where they have been developing creative, sensory and movement-based sessions that centre on connection, communication and shared discovery. Over a decade of practice together, we have built trust, a shared language, and a way of working that grows richer over time.

This sustained relationship is the foundation for our current work: a 2026 project exploring the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) through embodied, sensory and community-based sessions — bringing the principles of the Convention to life through lived, everyday experience.

About the Project

This project brings residents, key workers and the local community together through a series of sessions that explore communication, connection and belonging — both within ASC and out in the wider world. Each session builds on the last, layering sensory exploration, movement, group discussion and Irish Sign Language (ISL) into a shared and ever-expanding vocabulary for the group.

The work is rooted in the idea that rights are not abstract — they are expressed through the everyday: being heard, being included, having access to nature, community, and shared experiences. Sessions have taken the group from the ASC centre and grounds, out into the local parks, on nature walks through the neighbourhood, where we are not only meeting neighbours and their pets but having opportunity for the residents to socialise together as a group in new settings.

What We’re Learning

Co-Creative Collaborative Practice

We have been co-designing our sessions together by combining a movement workshop with group discussion. The movement element focused on connection, group morale, listening and shared enjoyment; the discussion element gave space for collective brainstorming on interests, needs and communication, with feedback and consent gathered directly from residents throughout. It’s a format we’re excited to build on.

Building a Shared Language

With guidance from the Anne Sullivan Outreach team, Hand under Hand resources and information from Perkins School for the Blind, we’ve been able to deepen the sensory and communicative core of each session. Every session now opens with a practice of everyone’s sign names, alongside the ISL for that day’s key themes — for example: tree, flower, sun, wind and rain for our nature-themed session. Week on week, the group’s shared language is expanding, alongside a deepening embodied and sensory experience, and a growing sense of togetherness — both within ASC and in the connections made with the wider local community.

Meeting the Community

Our nature walks have become a genuine point of connection with the neighbourhood. The group has had the opportunity to met local residents including Max, a gentle rescue dog, and his owner Dermot — who’s already looking forward to joining us again. Moments like these are exactly what the project is about: supporting everyone (neighbours, dogwalkers, Anne Sullivan centre residents, people working nearby) to feel more connected within their communities.

Key workers have reflected that the sessions are changing how they see their role — discovering more about the interests of the people they support, rethinking how they engage with the local area, and recognising the sensory richness of what’s “outside our door.” They’ve also spoken about becoming more attuned to how the group can connect with one another in public, shared spaces.

Following the Group’s Lead

The sessions are shaped by what the group responds to. A session exploring water — using colourant, scent, and the movement of water through sieves and pouring — sparked such enthusiasm that it led to our planning of future creative sessions at an accessible swimming pool.

Sharing, feedback and observation of the residents, keyworkers and wider team has enabled us to craft our sessions to accommodate everyone’s needs and interests and build-in details we learn from exploring together- for example, Thomas’s interest in collecting objects during our outdoor workshops helped us consider how we can creatively use natural objects as references for future activities.

Sharing the Journey

We have created an open context that informs the whole community at the centre of our explorations and learning so there is space for feedback and anyone to suggest ideas and ways we can add value to our collective experience. A noticeboard in the ASC gym displays the group’s collective findings and ideas — visible and open to the whole community as they pass through which can generate awareness, questions and conversation from people beyond the project group itself.

Looking Ahead

With momentum building, the group has identified a natural progression of settings for future sessions — with a curiousity to explore more public spaces that the group may have seldom or never explored, and likely never explored as a group. Each step of our project together is chosen collaboratively, giving the group time to prepare, anticipate, and shape what comes next.

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This project is a continuation of ten years of collaborative creative practice with ASC that has been kindly supported by Create Ireland and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council.