Phillida Eves is a creative sensory artist, director and educator. She is the Artistic Director of Rosán Sensory Adventures, a collective of freelance artists trained by Phillida in inclusive theatre. She is passionate about giving children and young people with intellectual disabilities and Autism a voice in the creative process and agency in expressing themselves in the creative arts.

Phillida and Rosán have developed and facilitated many sensory experiences in special and mainstream schools. They have developed, presented and toured inclusive sensory theatre performances all over Ireland. In 2024, Baboró commissioned Rosán to create the show ‘Antarctica!’ with students from St. Joseph’s Special School. The show has received wide acclaim and toured throughout Ireland; this year, it will travel across the ocean to be performed at Big Umbrella Festival in the Lincoln Center, New York, and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

What does it look like when you are making creative work?

Messy, colourful and bonkers! I love to bring a variety of materials to my work and many of these will be household items for which I have big plans (that frequently don’t work or work differently to my initial idea). I bring my ideas into a classroom in special schools, observing and learning from the children and young people and move forward from there, incorporating many of their responses in my work.

What do you do when you're feeling stuck creatively?

If I’m at home, I sweep the kitchen floor! Or go for a walk outside, honing in on small details, a flower, a stone, a leaf; or enormous things like the sky, the sea, a huge tree. I have to move. Moving and focusing on something else helps me to refresh my mind and to move forward with a lighter touch.