Frank Sweeney Screening Series
07 October — 04 November 2025, Tuesdays | 6pm
A screening series curated by exhibiting artist Frank Sweeney, selected in the context of his new film installation, Go Ye Afar.
DABF23 Workshop: Art + Activism Zine-Making Workshop
17 December 2023, 12–2pm
Join visual artists Lauren Kelly and Ala Buisir for this zine-making workshop and explore how art and activism can come together.
Take inspiration from the collection of artist books and zines at Dublin Art Book Fair and join the artists to create your own zine focused on art and activism. Using print, writing, drawing, stamping, stencilling, photocopy and collage.
A zine is usually a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and image, often made through a photocopier machine. An artistic format for individuals or groups to express and pursue common ideas and subjects. They can be vessels for activism, free speech, meaningful narratives, and creativity, a creative experience for both the zine makers and readers. For this reason, zines have cultural and academic value as tangible traces of marginal communities, many of which are otherwise little-documented.
Lauren Kelly is a Irish neurodiverse visual artist who specialises in socially engaged art and activism. They graduated from the National College of Art and Design in 2021 with first-class honours and the Staff Award for demonstrating great potential. Currently, they are a studio resident at Rua Red South Dublin Arts Centre. Since graduating, they have received awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Creative Ireland South Dublin County Council, and Create, the National Collaborative Arts Agency.
Ala Buisir is an award-winning visual artist and journalist. Born in Ireland with Libyan roots, Ala is a graduate BA in Photography from TU Dublin and MA in Journalism from DCU. She is currently undertaking a PhD by practice at the University of Limerick, in which she investigates the ‘othering’ of Muslim women in the Western world by societal Islamaphobia and Western tropes of Islam. In doing so, she aims to use this research to inform participatory arts-based interventions that challenge Islamaphobia against Muslim women by amplifying Muslim women's voices and creating avenues for digital storytelling in which these voices are agents in their narrative.
This event takes place as part of Dublin Art Book Fair 2023: Polyphonic, sponsored by Henry J Lyons and supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.
Image description: A photograph of a group of people kneeling on the floor drawing on sheets of paper.