Celebrating Creativity for Sustainability: SDSN Ireland Supports Two Leading Arts Festivals
SDSN Ireland proudly supported two concurrent festivals this spring that placed sustainability at the heart of arts, practice, and education: Reach’25, hosted by Queen’s University Belfast, and the Sustainability in the Arts Festival at South East Technological University (SETU). Both events during April of 2025 showcased the transformative role of creativity in advancing sustainable development, engaging diverse audiences across disciplines, institutions, and communities.
Reach’25: Arts and Sustainability at Queen’s University Belfast
Now in its second year, Reach’25 returned with a dynamic four-day programme that spanned the Queen’s University Belfast campus. The festival, part of the university’s 180th anniversary celebrations, featured exhibitions, virtual reality, film, music, panel discussions, creative writing, and more—highlighting the power of the arts to connect complex climate issues with emotion, understanding, and action.
One standout installation, Shrine to Falling Microbes by Misha Rabinovich of UMass Lowell, invited visitors into a 3D virtual environment that paid tribute to disappearing mutualistic microbial species, linking biodiversity loss with cultural and biological diversity. Additionally, a thought-provoking panel on “Art as Medicine” explored the role of social prescribing and creative expression in mental and physical health, drawing on insights from healthcare, arts organisations, and community leaders. Reach’25 also featured Arts Power, a provocative and innovative sharing of best practices on what the arts and cultural sectors are doing to reach, teach, and engage more people on sustainability issues.
Through vibrant collaboration between Queen's Sustainability team, the Naughton Gallery, the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s Film Theatre and others, Reach’25 amplified the message that the arts are not just expressive—they’re essential tools for creating sustainability solutions.
SETU: Embedding Sustainability in the Curriculum through the Arts
Meanwhile, in Ireland’s sunny south-east, SETU’s Sustainability in the Arts Festival continued its impressive expansion in its third year, running a full week of programming across Waterford, Carlow, and Wexford campuses. Centred on the theme Land, People and Culture, the festival exemplified how sustainability can be meaningfully embedded into teaching, assessment, and overall student experience.
Dr. Hazel Ferrell who leads the festival planning team commented that, “The festival not only provides a platform to showcase the innovative work of our learners, but it also highlights the growing understanding of sustainability within our university and wider community through the creative interpretations of the SDGs. Multidisciplinary collaboration and peer learning are integral to the festival, serving to create more meaningful learning experiences and empowering our students to use their creative voices to make a difference."
With active support from SATLE and N-TUTORR funding, the festival fostered interdisciplinary collaboration across visual arts, design, music, culinary arts, languages, and international studies. Projects included sustainable artefact design, eco-conscious cooking assessments, and music research inspired by the SDGs. The festival also led to the integration of sustainability criteria in continuous assessment briefs—ensuring lasting impact beyond the event itself.
SETU’s festival has also catalysed new strategic partnerships with institutions such as Georgia Southern University, La Rochelle University, UCC, QUB, and SDSN Ireland, and will be embedded into future teaching through active learning, CPD support, and structured interdisciplinary collaboration.
SDSN Ireland is proud to collaborate with institutions that use the power of the arts to inform, inspire, and innovate for a more sustainable future. These festivals exemplify how creative practice and education can drive systems change and empower the next generation of sustainability leaders.
For more information:
👉 SETU Sustainability in the Arts Festival
