DLR Place and Identity 2008-2010
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is delighted to announce that eight new projects covering theatre, photography, dance, visual art, literature and music have recently been selected as part of the ‘Place & Identity’ Per Cent for Art Programme. Six residencies and three once-off projects will take place over the life of the programme from 2008 to 2010 and will cover the entire county. The six residences will be attached to each of the electoral areas of the county and will last for a period of a year. The first three residencies will take place from June 2008 to May 2009.
Photographer Noel Bowler will undertake ‘Islam in Ireland’, a contemporary look at the one of the fastest growing religions in Ireland today in the Stillorgan electoral area. This new colour work is a fresh exploration and unprecedented look at life inside the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland. Eschewing traditional black and white imagery, this series of documentary photographs is set to portray the beauty and intimacy of the Islamic centre, together with a set of intimate portraits exploring the very ethnic diversity of the faith itself.
The Public Communications Group consisting of artists Brian Maguire, Brian O’Connor and Dominic Thorpe will be based in the Dundrum electoral area undertaking a project entitled Signatures. It will centre on engagement with individuals from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds who live in the area and would like to challenge and question assumptions about people who come here from other countries and the succeeding generations of those who have immigrated to Ireland. Portrait painting and audio recording will be used to make artwork which will be communicated through radio advertising and bus shelter posters.
Composer Ian Wilson will interview a number of people from the Glencullen electoral area and will write a 35-40 minute piece of music inspired by this. A number of performances will take place in the area in April 2009 with three classical and three improvising musicians. A CD recording of the work will be made and 1000 CD’s will be distributed for free.
Novelist and poet Dermot Bolger will write a new prose work inspired by his imaginative interpretation of the experience of life today in Blackrock. To allow the public an insight into the artistic process, Bolger will publish four free pamphlets, containing extracts from the work in progress. These will be accompanied by a reading series with other well-known Irish writers which will be free to the public.
Over the past 10 years artist Gary Coyle has made a series of works about Dún Laoghaire, incorporating a variety of media, including drawing photography & writing. For this commission Coyle will make a series of large portrait drawings in charcoal of Dún Laoghaire people and will also continue to examine his hometown via photography, this time using a large format camera.
2009 sees Dublin Youth Dance Company undertake Transitions, an innovative dance project that will be based in the Ballybrack electoral area. The project will involve transition year students from schools in the locality, senior members of Dublin Youth Dance Company and Artistic Director Mariam Ribon. It is a peer lead exploration of Dance, Place and Identity, which aims to develop contemporary dance in its practice and performance in site-specific areas within Ballybrack and various schools in the area.
In addition, there will be 2 once-off projects taking place in the east of the county between July and October 2008. Ciaran Taylor and BDNC Theatre took over the Dún Laoghaire ferry terminal after hours in July to show us some of the characters who pass through everyday. Theatre, movement and live music combined to serve up a slice of the real with a dollop of the surreal. There may be 50 ways to leave Dun Laoghaire but are there as many ways to come back? The performances were a great success, with attendances at capacity for each show.
Artist Patricia McKenna will create a time-based piece lasting 1 day on Sandycove beach in September 2008. It will consist of brightly coloured gelatine pieces that will be placed on the beach at low tide and will gradually dissolve and drift out to sea. The artist will also create a video piece arising from the installation. Patricia is concerned with the idea of time and how we cannot hold it or stop things from changing or moving on. A further once-off project for the west of the county will be selected over the coming months and will take place in 2009.
This programme sees the County Council pool funding from a variety of Per Cent for Art Schemes in Housing and Environment, through the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. In excess of €500,000 will be spent on the programme between 2008 and 2010. The Per Cent for Art scheme allows for one per cent (subject to specified limits and up to a maximum of €64,000) to be included in the budget for all capital construction budgets, to be spent on an artwork. The money is ring-fenced for public art and cannot be used for any other purpose. This new programme encompasses a range of artforms, will cover the entire county and will involve local people as both participants and audience. It fits with the overall ethos of the County Council’s recently published Arts Policy in that it fully commits to a belief in the value of the arts and the distinctive contribution they make to the quality of life of the county and its citizens.
Further information on the programme is available from:
Ciara King, Public Art Programme Administrator,
E: cking@dlrcoco.ie T: +353 (0)1 271 9529
