transversal practice
Dr Cathy Fitzgerald, BA Fine Art (Hons), Visual Culture PhD by Practice
| ecological (ecosocial( art practitioner | researcher | educator
Ecological artist-educator-researcher, Dr Cathy Fitzgerald is an Irish-based New Zealander living in rural Carlow for the past 20 years. With a former background in research science, since the late 1990s Cathy has been inspired by the transformative social power of creative-led, embedded-in-place ecological art practices to inclusively inspire diverse communities to creatively envision more beautiful, just, equitable and sustainable futures.
In recent years, Cathy has built on ongoing creative-led forest and wetland community restoration practices (Hollywoodforest.com; DrumminBog.com), and reviewed advances in international ecological art practice research for her PhD: ‘The Ecological Turn’ (NCAD, 2018). All through her university art education, Cathy strove to connect ecological understanding to her creativity to inspire diverse audiences that science, politics and the media often fail to achieve.
In recent years as a popular educator, she passionately advocates that ecoliterate cultural activity has crucial ways to inclusively engage others to work for collective, planetary and intergenerational wellbeing.
Since 2019, Cathy has been deeply committed to developing the popular online Haumea Ecoversity.ie with her colleague philosopher Dr Nikos Patedakis (California). Together they work to support and upskill mid-career creatives and cultural professionals working in all art fields, including literature and poetry, to cultivate essential ecoliteracy – the ecological vision, values and practices of wellbeing needed by the creative sector to promote, inspire and sustain an immense cultural shift to a better world.