Saoirse Exton

Saoirse Exton is the first and only Irish winner of Rise, an initiative supported by Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust. She is the founder of Fridays for Future Limerick in Limerick city, and a founding member of Fridays for Future Ireland. Saoirse is the youngest UN Advisor in history, representing Western Europe on the Secretary General's Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

Saoirse is passionately bilingual and a strong advocate for the integral importance of the Irish language in re-establishing the idea of earth as sacred in the exploitative, capitalist mindsets of our societies and economies. She also has a keen interest in mythology and folktales, believing that they hold the key to reconnecting and decolonising our attitudes and relationship with the planet.

Saoirse believes that in order to combat the climate crisis, humanity must also dig to the root of their problems, interrogating the very systems that have sown colonialist and extractavist ideologies across the way we think and reason. The economy has become a set of immutable rules, where growth is a necessity and final imperative, not a means to achieving justice and equity for all. By restructuring our economic system around empathy and equity, Saoirse believes we can create a better world for all, where no group of individuals are oppressed just for the wealthy to accumulate more wealth.

The Young Curators Programme is a new initiative at The Dock to collaborate with young people on delivering strategic aims and priorities of the organisation, to provide paid work experience and funded training opportunities for young people in the arts and culture sector in Ireland and internationally, and to involve young people in policy-making and future-proofing activities.

Saoirse Exton's participation in the Young Curators Programme is kindly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.