About the Exhibition

UCC Occupational Therapy students’ exhibition of prints and weaves celebrates 100 years of the Occupational Therapy profession.

The works are the outcome of an ongoing collaboration between first year Occupational Therapy students, Cork Printmakers and textile artist Frances Leach, as part of an undergraduate module entitled Creative Occupations and Health. Exhibition curator and UCC Occupational Therapy lecturer Dr. Eithne Hunt says that “there is a long history of the use of art, craft and creative activities in Occupational Therapy, going back to the foundation of the profession in 1917 with an understanding of the power of occupation and the harnessing of people’s creative energy”.  

“Orderly Rhythm” are words drawn from a seminal keynote lecture by Adolph Meyer, considered by many to be the father of Occupational Therapy….. “The whole of human organisation has its shape in a kind of rhythm….There are many rhythms which we must be attuned to: the larger rhythms of night and day, or sleep and waking hours, of hunger and its gratification, and finally the big four – work, play, rest and sleep, which our organism must be able to balance even under difficulty. The only way to attain balance in all this is actual doing, actual practice, a program of wholesome living….the creation of an orderly rhythm….” Dr. Hunt believes that “these words have as much relevance for contemporary living as they did almost 100 years ago”.

Brid Dunne, a lecturer in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, UCC was the guest speaker at the opening of the “Orderly Rhythm” on Thursday 21^st September. Reflecting the exhibition theme and the profession’s centennial celebrations, Brid shared insights from her Irish Research Council funded doctoral research ‘From the wretched laundry to a lovely solarium: the history of the therapeutic use of occupation in Ireland, 1865-1970’. Brid says “Researching the history of therapeutic occupation reveals the trajectory of occupational therapy’s complex relationship with creative occupations. The annual art exhibition connects occupational therapy to the first principles of the profession and reminds us that occupation is valuable for all people”.

Opening Night Photos