Associate Artists
TCA have a long history of working with a talented array of associate artists. Some of these artists work as facilitators and/or co-ordinators on our long-term core programmes, and some serve in creative roles on other current projects. Our panel of associate artists at present is listed below.
Caroline Hyland
Caroline Hyland is an artist mentor and facilitator working with the DoubleTAKE Supported Arts Studio which is part of Tallaght Community Arts based in the Rua Red Arts Centre. She is also an art facilitator with the Living Well with Dementia (LWWD) community project, Southside Partnership and Dunlaoghaire Rathdown (DLR) Arts Office working with community art groups, including the LWWD art group, Men’s Sheds and Retirement groups. In 2024 she piloted an Art at Home project with people who have a Dementia in DLR. Caroline is also trained in Azure tour guiding. This is a program designed to support people living with Dementia to access galleries and museums. Caroline believes in access to arts for all and is currently collaborating with Rua Red to also increase DoubleTAKE artists’ engagement with exhibitions in the Arts Centre using the Azure approach.
Caroline previously worked as an art facilitator in Tallaght University Hospital bringing art to people at their bedside, facilitating Art while you wait groups with children in the emergency Department, Children’s Outpatients and the hospital school. She also facilitated art sessions with people attending the Aged Related clinic and Dialysis day unit. Caroline strongly believes in the power of art for advocacy, supportive learning, storytelling and engaging and connecting with communities.
Caroline is also a freelance Illustrator. She enjoys using her art to help people feel heard and to create more accessible information. Her clients include Tallaght University Hospital (TUH), advocacy groups and she also takes private commissions. She collaborated with the Stroke team in TUH to create an illustrated booklet from their research to support children’s understanding of Stroke. She has also self published an illustrated book entitled ‘Can You See What I See?’ that supports people living well with a Dementia, which is available to borrow from your local library. She recently developed illustrations for an Advocacy group after visual recording drama sessions exploring ‘Finding Your Voice’. Caroline has also completed illustrations for a Rights group exploring the Assisted Decision Making Law which is being developed into video by the organisation. Last year she illustrated, designed and developed her first short video entitled ‘Expected to be Checked’ for TUH, which will be launched in the coming months. Caroline developed illustrations with the DoubleTAKE studio advocacy group for their short film ‘We Will Not Sit Down and Be Quiet’. She also visual recorded and created illustrations for the Cheeverstown Advocacy committee for a number of years. Caroline has previously worked as an editorial illustrator, with book publishers and newspapers.
Caroline also enjoys creating bespoke illustrations that celebrate people’s life stories and significant moments in their lives. These include love stories, stories of illness and recovery, stories to pass down to family and her most recent commission was a visual story celebrating the work life of someone retiring. She is recently published her father’s life stories, which she illustrated, edited and designed for print.
Caroline has a background education and experience in Visual Communications, Art Education and is a qualified Occupational Therapist (OT). She has also worked as a resource teacher in mainstream education and as an art facilitator with children in the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dublin.
Caroline spent 6 years working as an OT in the area of Intellectual Disability before returning to the Arts Sector in 2013. During her time as an Occupational Therapist she worked in schools, clinics, hospitals, day centres and residential supporting the needs of adults and children.
She has a special interest in Dementia and her project ‘Can You See What I See?’ has toured as an art exhibition since 2017. Trinity College Dublin, Tallaght University Hospital and Cork City Libraries have copies of the full series in their permanent collection and a book, self published in 2021, was developed to disseminate the project further and to fundraise for the Living Well with Dementia project and Lewy Body Ireland.
Jenny macdonald
Jenny Macdonald is a theatremaker and facilitator whose practice encompasses writing / performing and directing / facilitating.
In 2025 Jenny served as the Artistic Director on ‘To the Power of 3’ - a collaborative project led by Tallaght Community Arts, funded by the Creative Ireland Programme as part of the Government’s Shared Island Initiative. It took the form of a creative exchange between young people from Derry/Londonderry, Tallaght and Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. The project utilised devised performance to explore the importance of cultural connection, diversity, pride of place, and what it means to be a young person on the island of Ireland today.
Her play ‘The Tightrope Walker’ was presented at Smock Alley Theatre as part of First Fortnight Festival 2025. It has also been presented at the Civic, The Samuel Beckett Theatre, and Beaumont and Tallaght University Hospitals. Her play ‘Enthroned’ was programmed by the Civic, glór, Town Hall (Galway), First Fortnight and the New York International Fringe Festival.
In 2019, she founded SoloSIRENs, an intercultural company of female-identifying artists in residence at the Civic, Tallaght. With SoloSIRENS, she aims to amplify female-identifying voices and to create more just, sustainable, and caring models of making and presenting theatre. For SoloSIRENs she has devised and directed community-engaged performances including “Careground” (Civic 2023), “Cessair” (Civic, 2021), "Dear Ireland III" (Abbey Theatre, 2020), and "Falling" (Civic, 2019). She has also curated two SoloSIRENs festivals and three symposia including the ‘How Do We Care?’ Symposium 2025 at the Samuel Beckett Theatre as part of Creative Brain Week and TCA’s Cultural Competency Programme.
In 2023, she was a performer in Siog by Freshly Ground Theatre presented by the Civic in Tymon Park. She has created numerous theatre projects with community groups in South Dublin County including Doors to Elsewhere (a TCA project she co-facilitates with Jennifer Webster), residents of Clondalkin Towers direct provision centre and Clondalkin Intercultural Centre.
Since 2017, she has been an Associate Artist with the Abbey Theatre where she co-facilitates theatre-based trainings for physicians and carers in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians Ireland and the Global Brain Health Institute. She was Writer in Residence at the Irish Hospice Foundation, 2022-2023. She is a lecturer in Socially Engaged Theatre at Trinity College, Dublin and New York University. She is an alumnus of Dublin Theatre Festival’s professional development programme ‘The Next Stage’ and a mentor to many emerging artists and companies.
Proud to be funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and South Dublin County Council