Fold and Rise is a travelling, participatory artwork that takes breadmaking as both metaphor and method. Beginning in 2015 at the kitchen table of Countess Constance Markievicz, –revolutionary, first Irish Minister for Labour-in Lissadell House, Sligo. The project carries a living sourdough culture from place to place, linking people and conversations across time and geography.

Through a process we call “Knead and Read”, participants knead dough while listening to readings from feminist, historical and political texts. The rising bread becomes a shared language, holding stories of labour, resilience, and transformation. Participants take their dough home to bake, extending the dialogue into domestic space and everyday life.

Since its beginning, Fold and Rise has travelled widely, from Westminster (where Markievicz was the first woman voted to The British Parliament) to Áras an Uachtaráin, Tate Liverpool, Ai Stratis Festival in Greece, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art—folding personal memories into collective histories.

This ongoing practice asks how the domestic can become political, how bodies carry knowledge, and how simple acts of making together can create space for reflection and change.

Key Convenings

• 2016 – Lissadell House, Sligo (birthplace of Constance Markievicz)
• 2016 – University College London, Public Lecture Series
• 2017 – Food Feminism and Fermentation, McGill University, Montreal
• 2017 – Sibéal, Revolutionary Genders Conference, NUI Galway
• 2018 – University of Westminster, London (A Century of Women MPs)
• 2018 – Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin
• 2018 – Ai Stratis Festival, Greece (community breadmaking and distribution)
• 2018 – European Academy of Participation, Amsterdam
• 2019 – Liverpool Irish Festival & Tate Liverpool
• 2019 – Limerick Women’s Network, Ormston House; Moyross Women’s Group, Limerick
• 2020–21 – Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin

Artists

Maeve Collins and Julie Griffiths create participatory, critical, and playful spaces where culture, identity, and labour are explored. Together, they continue to build a living, mobile practice that brings the outside in.

Past Interactions and Convenings

Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2020+21, Liverpool Irish Festival, Tate Liverpool, UK, 2019 This Place, Maghery and Armagh, 5 convenings, 2019, Laboratory of Common Interest, FabLAb, Limerick, 2019, Limerick Women’s Network, Ormston House, Limerick 2019, Moyross Women’s Group, Limerick 2019, Culture night, Castlewood Organic Farm, Laois, 2018 , Ai Stratis Festival, Greece, 2018, A Century of Women MP’s conference, University of Westminster, London 2018, Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin 2018, European Academy of Participation, Amsterdam 2018, Arts Research Conference, Brooks University, Oxford, 2017, Food Feminism and Fermentation, McGill University, Montreal 2017, Smithstown Castle, Kilshanny, North Clare 2017, Culture Night, simultaneous events in Ginger Lou’s Coffee Shop, Ennistymon and Dublin Design Institute 2017, Men’s Shed Killorglin 2017, Sibéal, Revolutionary Genders Conference, NUIG 2017, American Embassy Dublin 2016, Public Lecture series, University College London, 2016, MA Socially Engaged Art, Spaces for Learning Module, NCAD, Dublin 2016, Domestic, kitchen, Dr. Mary Feeny, Wicklow 2016, Pavee Point Taveller Project, Dublin, 2016, Lacuna, research reading group 2016, Lifecourse and Society Institute, NUIG, Galway, 2016, Lissadell House, Sligo 2016