Floating Voices is zero-carbon, eco-educational barge programme supporting community-led environmental action across Ireland’s waterways.
The Story So Far
THE BARGE BUILD
Has been specially designed as a zero-carbon barge, as seen in the blueprint here, by Waterford-based naval architects and is now ready to be built. Now we need your help to raise the funds to build the barge.
PROGRAMMES DELIVERED
To date, Floating Voices has delivered three pilot programmes with six communities in Waterford and is now (2026) delivering the Shared Island Programme with six communities in the North and South of Ireland
FROM WALLS TO WATER
Floating Voices is the next major project by Edel Tobin. Building on the work of Waterford Walls which reimagined urban spaces through art, Floating Voices extends this work onto Ireland’s waterways through collaboration, participation, and shared ownership.
THE PROJECT BEGINNINGS
Inspired by Swoon’s Swimming Cities, Floating Voices empowers Irish communities to shape eco-art programmes by choosing local water issues, collaborating artists, scientists, and creative approaches together.
The work in action
Watch our videos here showing all the behind-the-scenes stories and impact from our eco-education programmes, delivered with six communities in Waterford.
ECO EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME 2022
ECO EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME 2023
ECO EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME 2024
Climate change is local. It's in...
our rivers
Our biodiversity
Our Community
Our water quality
Your voice matters
Floating Voices builds on a long-standing commitment to community-led creativity. The project grows out of work that reimagined urban spaces through public art, participation, and shared ownership, creating opportunities for people to connect with their surroundings and with each other. Floating Voices carries that same ethos onto Ireland’s waterways, shifting the focus from streets to rivers, and from urban space to environmental care rooted in place.
A shared inspiration
In late 2025, Floating Voices secured funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Shared Island Programme to deliver an eco-educational initiative with cross-border schools and community groups.
In 2026, artists and scientists will collaborate with participants on locally relevant environmental issues.
Exciting updates and creative outcomes from this programme are coming soon so watch this space!
Already in motion
Floating Voices didn’t begin with the barge. Over the past three years, the project has been taking shape through eco-education workshops and creative programmes delivered with communities across Waterford. These early projects bring artists and scientists together with local groups to explore water, ecology, and place, laying the foundations for what Floating Voices is becoming and grounding the work in lived experience from the very start.
Community-led workshops
Exploring waterways through hands-on learning.
Artists + scientists together
Collaboration rooted in local knowledge.
Water quality + biodiversity
Real issues, explored in a creative way.
Flooding + resilience
Turning concern into action and understanding.
Made with communities
Not for communities. With them.
Shared artworks + shared learning
Outcomes that carry responsibility and hope.
follow the journey
