Martina Finn The Permaculturalist
Martina Finn has worked for many years in community development and in arts and cultural management. These roles included as an independent arts and cultural consultant, as County Council Arts Officer for Westmeath and North Tipperary County Councils and as a Community Development Officer with both Galway County Council and North Tipperary County Council.
She is a curator, community activist and organiser, permaculturist, educator and workshop facilitator, events manager, community food grower, earth holder and Third Space Galway project manager, engaged in supporting transformative and regenerative cultural responses to climate change, ecological collapse, community resilience, and mindful sustainable pathways towards a life in harmony with each other and the Earth
Having co-founded Third Space Galway in 2014 as an arts research and activist platform, Martina has continued to work with this eco-arts collective, as a socially engaged permaculture and action research project, devising a number of creative and collaborative environmental and community food projects in Galway city and county, recognising the role of arts and culture in bringing to life a more regenerative culture. She is renowned as an active champion of permaculture, earth care, people care and fair share /future care, food sovereignty, edible public landscapes, biodiversity, the commons, community led renewable energy, advocating for both regenerative agri and cultural practices within local government, community groups and organisations… emphasising nature as our model for co creation, collaboration, partnerships and harmonious relationship as part of the wider community of life.
In her work she listens for the ways in which we can gather a network around a shared purpose and build collaborative practice and opportunity, reclaiming our experience of being in harmony with the Earth and each other. Some of the success is intangible, and accepts that changing any system will also mean changing ourselves.
These beliefs have led to her initiating or taking on leading roles in Collaborative Ways Forward, Post Carbon Galway, Convergence(Galway’s first Sustainable Living Festival), Pop Up Eco Hub, Galway Food Festival’s Regenerative Food Talks Series, and the TSG ‘Permaculture in the City’ projects – the Eglinton Canal Permaculture and Biodiversity Trail, Westside’s Edible Forest Garden and Food Forest Demonstration project, Westside Youth Centre’s Vertical garden and Huglekulture project and the permaculture-inspired community allotment at Shantalla.
Martina is currently co-chair of Conservation Volunteers Galway, a member of the Galway Environmental Network, and co-founder of the local Solas Gheal mindfulness group as well as the Regional Community Builder for Earth Holder Community Ireland programme which is about bringing mindfulness, compassion, healing and nonviolence to protecting ourselves, to one another, to all species and to the Earth.
She is currently also serving on the Secretariat of the Galway County Council Public Participation Network (PPN) co-founding the Galway Green Recovery Group, a multi stakeholder network of local and national environmental/sustainability, community and conservation champions and organisations that is aiming to raise awareness, advance local community initiatives to accelerate a local pathway to zero-carbon living, promote flourishing sustainable communities and way of life, and to work on a rural and ecological regeneration action plan and renewable energy strategy for the county.
Martina holds a BA in Social Science, Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC), Foundation Art & Design, Post Graduate Diploma in Multimedia Communications, Higher Diploma in Arts Policy and Practice, MA in Curatorial Visual Art Practices.