Lucina Russell

Lucina Russell was appointed as Arts Officer for Kildare County Council in 2000 and in recent years, also took on the Creative Ireland Coordinator role.

With overall responsibility for arts policy and programme in Kildare, she established arts and cultural programmes across artforms. She founded Kildare Short Grass Films, supporting the making of over 50 short film in the county and from local filmmakers. In 2014, she produced ‘All About Eva’ which premiered at the Dublin Film Festival.

In 2019, Lucina led the successful bid, with KWETB for Kildare Music Generation and in 2021, a bid to the Arts Council for a 3 year ground-up socially engaged art project, Creative Places Athy. Most recently, with the Design Innovation Dept., Maynooth University and Kildare’s Climate coordinator, she secured €250,000 under the Creative Ireland Creative Climate Agents for Change fund, to pilot a design-thinking and behavioural economics approach to support behavioural change.

Instrumental in the establishment of a ground-breaking Arts, Health and Wellbeing programme for Kildare, she was a founder member of artsandhealth.ie. Lucina represented the Association of Local Authority Arts Officers on the advisory group for artsineducation.ie from its inception until 2023.

Committed to working with strategic partners, she has developed long-standing relationships with Maynooth University Departments of English, Music and Geography, connecting artists, academics and communities. Lucina was a member of the Kildare Readers Festival committee and sat on the board of Riverbank Arts Centre, Newbridge. She was appointed to the board of Arts & Disability Ireland in August 2022.

Lucina is currently on a career break from Kildare County Council and is Lecturer in Art and Design Education at Limerick School of Art. She received the ‘Irish Times Award for Outstanding Achievement’ when she graduated from LSAD in Art and Design Education.