UCD JANUARY 24th
UCD JANUARY 24th
NEUROCONVERGENCE PRESENTS “NEUROCONVENE”
Join Neuroconvergence for a World Café style workshop-meeting with artistic interludes this January. This is a single event taking place in the Astra Hall, UCD Student Centre on the 24th January 2026. A partners’ meeting that invites partners, sector individuals and the public to contribute to the unity project that is Neuroconvergence.
Saturday, 24th January 2026 – 1pm to 4pm
UCD Student Centre, Stillorgan Rd, Clonskeagh, Dublin 4
Free, Registration Required
Neuroconvergence presents “NEUROCONVENE”:
This workshop is suggested for ages 14+.
As part of our commitment to holding space for the neurodivergent community to connect and collaborate, this workshop will welcome invited sector partners and invested members of the public to come together, share ideas and find common ground. This workshop will be facilitated by Second Nature.
At our last partners’ meeting, we asked “Who isn’t in this room?”, “Whose voices could we support to be here?”. That’s why, for this workshop-meeting, we are offering a limited number of tickets to the public to come and make your voices heard. We are stronger together, and we want to ensure that Neuroconvergence serves the diverse neurodiverse community in Ireland.
This workshop-meeting will include artistic interludes from talented members of the neurodivergent creative community to inspire responses and celebrate our community.
This event will take place in the Astra Hall, UCD Student Centre. There will be catering provided during the break, halfway through the event
There will be a quiet space available for attendees.
This event is free and ticketed. Tickets are extremely limited, so book soon to secure your space. *Please note we will not be able to take attendees without tickets on the day.*
Performers at NeuroconvenE
Chequerboard
A Japanese garden is a fitting metaphor for the music of Chequerboard. This music is raked, and tended to, with such focus and care that each sound rises and falls in its own being without ever losing purpose or beauty. Peace reigns, and the acoustic heart of John Lambert’s guitar beats contently and evenly through the veins of the partaker. Living on the serener end of the post rock rainbow Chequerboard’s acoustic guitar now and then is accompanied by other equally tempered instruments, keeping a steady unfolding, and developing each reach with finesse and class.
Mary Barnecutt
Mary Barnecutt is Dublin-based musician, programmer and music educator who works with a wide variety of artistic and educational projects. She writes and arranges music for film, theatre, dance productions, and has collaborated with artists such as Liz Roche, Justine Doswell, Amanda Coogan and Ray Harman. She is music programmer of the Sundays at Noon concert series in Dublin’s Hugh Lane Gallery, and is co-director of ‘Spike’, Dublin’s alternative cello festival www.spikecellofest.com. With violinist Ciara Cavanagh she co-ordinates weekly string projects in Saint Finian’s NS, Finglas, Dublin and St Peter’s NS Dublin 7.
She produces, records and releases music on her label, Sharkwoman records. Her solo albums are Into Air 2017 and Like Water, 2024.
marypigeons.com
Fáin
Stiofáin is an oral storyteller with a multidisciplinary background who loves to discuss the darker and more mysterious aspects of Irish folklore, drawing on Ireland’s prestigious National Folklore Collection while creating an atmosphere of comfort and safety. Stiofáin studied Irish Folklore at UCD, laboured in the story mines of The National Leprechaun Museum, and has produced various multi-media projects including podcasts, audio-dramas, Alternative Reality Games and video essays. Often involving weird little puppets.
Oluwatobi Balogun
Oluwatobi Balogun is a Multidisciplinary Artist, working across Dance, Theatre, Voice and Design. With a background and training across dance, fashion, and art his artistic practice focuses on Hiphop as critical pedagogy and Afro-surrealism as methodologies of creation, fixing the lens of practice on black masculinity and cultural sustainability. Through his work he blends traditional and contemporary references to create new realms of freedom, imagination and community. Bringing broader perspectives to the conversation of masculinity, identity and community whilst combining practices of creation, curation, facilitation and performance. Tobi has performed for and created community led performances and projects with many Artists/companies such as Cois Ceim, Cathy Coughlan, Story of the Sei, Dance Ireland and more.
In 2023 he presented ‘Ara’ a mixed media Visual Art installation as part of PhotoIreland festival fusing dance, mixed media sculpture and sustainable methods. Representing the work for exhibition as part of Behind the Curtain - Artworks 2024 at the Visual, Carlow as part of a group exhibition alongside Ulla Von Brandenburg’s ‘Underwater Ball’.