We are manifesting a state of the art interdisciplinary arts centre in Dublin 8 and we are looking to express the artistic value of this future space through a collective interdisciplinary art expression.

You are invited to join a series of free workshops as we conceptually consider (public) space and create a response work exploring and expressing the meaning of space.

No experience is needed, just an interest in the subject matter.

Workshops take place over eight Wednesdays and we invite you to join as many as you can.

Workshops will be led by performance makers and visual artists including Anthony Freeman O'Brien, Eve Woods and Aoife Ward of Con: temporary Quarters, Joan Somers Donnelly, Mark Cullen (Pallas Projects/Studios) and Maud Hendricks and Bernie O'Reilly (Outlandish Theatre Platform).

Space Now is kindly supported by the Arts Council, DCC and The Digital Hub

Outlandish Theatre Platform
Maud Hendrick and Bernie O'Reilly

Outlandish Theatre Platform creates performances in which professional and community performers collectively explore what theatre is for and how theatre relates to our ‘everyday’ in extraordinary times. For the last twelve years Maud and Bernie have experimented in an ongoing dialogue with the participant as performer, director and audience member. As artists we focus on the interplay between spaces, sound, lighting, costume design and the content of performers questions. Our performances balance on the shared everyday sublime at the end game of the Anthropocene, where people’s destruction of the planet might lead to its extinction.

Event

Con: temporary Quarters
Eve Woods and Aoife Ward

Con: temporary Quarters, led by artists Aoife Ward and Eve Woods, is a collaborative project which brings attention to the use of and availability of public space.

This project focuses on the replacement of cultural and community spaces, unique architecture and amenities with large, closed developments pushing users towards a short term lifestyle through anti-community focused architecture.

They first presented 'A Cultural Tour of Hotels in The Liberties' as a lynchpin of Culture Night Dublin’s 2022 tours programme, where they gave 2 sold out satirical walking tours of hotels and student accommodation in The Liberties, Dublin 8.

They have presented a number of performance events and public artworks including An Couch Pleanala (2022), How to Exist in a Public Space (2022), Open House (2023). They also produce pamphlets and posters in tandem with events such as 'A Cultural Tour of Hotels in The Liberties' which was part of the Dublin Art Book Fair at Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, and ‘Open House’. In September 2023 they exhibited “Con:Temporary Quarters” a show of works held in the StayCity Exhibition space on Francis St, formerly the Tivoli theatre. These works directly criticised the hotels lack of action regarding the programming and upkeep of the exhibition space. Upcoming exhibitions include: The Perennial Affair: An Exploration Between Art and Politics, at Trinity College Dublin and Jelly Presents, March 2024.

Joan Somers Donnelly

Joan Somers Donnelly is an Irish artist based between Brussels and Dublin, with a collaborative practice that moves between performance, writing, research, organising, and designing frameworks for being together differently. Performance work in recent years includes Beginner's Guide To Slow Travel with Kirkos Ensemble, Choir for Cows, and the lecture performances You and Me, Here and Now and To Convey; as well as six previous productions with Outlandish Theatre Platform (Nothing, Patterns, WOMB, Love & Charity, Fear, and Summerfolk Redux). She is currently an artist in residence at Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute on the research project Data Stories, which aims to map and analyse the housing and property data ecosystem in Ireland using interdisciplinary methodologies. She is also involved in a working group on artist work spaces within Praxis Artist Union.

Anthony Freeman O' Brien

Beekeeper and social enterprise project manager with the Robert Emmet Community Development Project Born and raised in Dublin’s Liberties, Anthony is a Beekeeper and social enterprise project manager with the Robert Emmet Community Development Project. Anthony currently manages the ‘In Our Shoes Inner City Walking Tours’ project and the ‘Bee8 Urban Beekeeping initiative’ which dates back to 2014. Bee8 looks after multiple hives in the Dublin 8 area and offers free beekeeping courses and educational resources to the local community and schools. Both Bee8 and In Our Shoes are working to change narratives around how we live in inner-city Dublin and to offer new and unique opportunities to disadvantaged communities. Anthony is also a sculptor, NCAD graduate and chosen to exhibit at the 2023 RDS Visual Art Awards exhibition in the West Wing Galleries at IMMA from December 2023 – March 2024.