Festival: Disrupt Disability Arts 2025 at the Project Arts Centre
6 - 8 Mar 2025 (Past)
Online and in-person at the Project Arts Centre, 39 Essex St East, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
This March, Ireland’s new annual disability arts festival takes centre stage.
Disrupt Disability Arts Festival is a vibrant celebration of disability art, curated by and for the disability community.
Immerse yourself in a rich diversity of voices from the disability arts community. The festival line up includes theatre, dance, literature-based performance and visual arts, all delivered through a range of accessible engagement formats in relaxed spaces.
About Disrupt
This unique festival is designed to deepen understanding and appreciation for the richness of experiences and perspectives that define disability in Ireland. Disrupt Disability Arts Festival actively dismantles barriers to artistic engagement faced by both artists and audiences with lived experience of disability.
Guided by the principles of the social model of disability, Disrupt Disability Arts Festival is a disability-led and disability-focused event. It foregrounds quality artistic practices while challenging prevailing notions about disability. Disrupt Disability Arts Festival is a space for connection between the Irish disability community and wider society, opening dialogue and creating shared experiences.
The festival’s hybrid events (in-person and online) open up the programme to wider disability communities, but also to carers and national arts audiences who may face economic or geographical barriers. You can view the social story for the Project Arts Centre below.
Join Disrupt Disability Arts Festival from 6-8 March 2025 at Project Arts Centre and online. The online programme will continue until 1 April.
Come on a journey that goes beyond the ordinary, transcends boundaries and reshapes narratives around disability and the arts.
Events include:
Disruption – Opening Event on Disability and Intersectionality 6 March at 7.30pm
Featuring Alessandra Azeviche, Day Magee, Maryam Madani, Owen/Pink O’Malley
Unpacking the overlapping complexities of identity through powerful performances and conversation.
CHAT – Empowering Creativity: The Role of Assistive Technology in Art 7 March at 2pm
Featuring FreedomTech, Enable Ireland, The Disability Federation of Ireland, Moderated by Sinéad Burke
A dynamic event looking at how assistive technology empowers creativity and expands accessibility in the arts, moderated by Sinéad Burke, CEO of Tilting the Lens
Toilet Paper Diaries 7 March at 7.30pm
Featuring Porcelain Delaney, Sue Rainsford
A raw and heartfelt piece of theatre by Porcelain Delaney about childhood dreams, medical gaslighting and the fight to be heard, followed by in-conversation with Sue Rainsford
Embedding Access: Workshop for Disability Inclusion with Al Bellamy 8 March at 12 noon
Join accessible theatre director Al Bellamy in exploring the role of theatre-makers as creative forces in implementing disability inclusion
Meet the Artist and Exhibition: Jason Grace with Connections Arts Centre 8 March at 2pm
Jason Grace, from Connecting Artists 2024 will share insights into his creative processes alongside an exhibition of his work
Dis-Cover: The Power of Expression 8 March at 7.30pm
Featuring Emilie Conway, Lianne Quigley
Performances by Lianne Quigley and Emilie Conway, followed by an in-conversation for International Women’s Day.
Sign the Night Away: Closing Party 9 March at 9.15pm
Featuring Sarah-Jane O’Regan
Come and party with Sarah-Jane O’Regan, a queen of music and Irish Sign Language at Disrupt’s unforgettable closing night dance party.
Exhibitions running throughout the festival include ‘SQUISHY!’ by Ríon Duffy Murphy and ‘Unusual Gestures’ by Lorraine Tuck and Owen/Pink O’Malley.
Access
On each event listing on disruptfestival.ie you will see a list of which access services are available for that event. All events and workshops are relaxed and you may come and go as you please, make noise and move around!
All events and workshops seek to care for one another, by wearing masks, providing ventilation, providing comfortable seating and snacks, water and quiet space to recharge.
Disrupt Disability Arts Festival is eager to provide access for audiences at multiple stages of their engagement with the festival, not just during events or performances. As such they will have some limited access services available if needed during social opportunities after each event has taken place to assist with networking. These services will be available for approximately 30 minutes after each event and will include Irish Sign Language interpreters and audio describers or guides. As mentioned, these services will be limited so it may be necessary to wait for the providers to become available if they are engaged with other attendees.
If you are experiencing flu-like symptoms, we would ask that you please not attend any of the festival events. For more please read their Covid Safety Policy. Their events are a mix of in-person, online and hybrid, check our programme to see details.
If you have any questions about the festival please do not hesitate to get in touch by emailing info@disruptfestival.ie
Images by Simon Lazewski.
Programme Notes:
Disrupt panel from 2024 ‘Dis-Gender; Disability and Gender Identity’ performance and discussion. Featuring Mairead Folan, Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan, Kathleen O’Leary, Them Fatale, and chaired by Tara Carroll. 
Disrupt Festival returns to the Project Arts centre this spring 2025. 
Distinct, an exhibition curated by AlanJames Burns from Disrupt 2024, explores the climate crisis through the perspective of disability. Image courtesy of AlanJames Burns.
Upcoming Events
20 Feb - 22 May 2025
Visual Art: Accessible Tours at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Spring 2025
14 Mar - 20 Apr 2025
Visual Arts: CA Collective Spring 2025 Exhibition at the RHA
