South Dublin Arts Consultation
An on-line public consultation supplemented by discussion, debate and encounter looking ahead to a new strategy for a new era ‘Arts South Dublin 2011-2016’.
South Dublin County Council Arts Office has launched a public consultation process which seeks to inform the development of a new five year arts strategy for the county. The public consultation makes use of available new technologies streamlining the process making it as accessible and easy to use as possible.
Register your interest…
You can register your interest in the consultation process here by become a ‘follower’ of our blog, you can post comments, follow discussions and find out about forthcoming focus groups and seminar events.
Email an open submission…
You can send us an open submission outlining your priorities for the arts in the South Dublin area.
Email your submission to: southdublinartsoffice@gmail.com
Younger participants…..
Alternatively, if you are a registered member of our youth arts website NOISE, you can make your submission at www.noisesouthdublin.com/projects
Make a postal submission…
You can post us your open submission to Arts Public Consultation, c/o Arts Office, South Dublin County Council, County Hall, The Square, Tallaght, Dublin 24.
Attend a focus group event…
Led by members of the multi-disciplinary Arts Team these events have been designed to examine key issues at the heart of the current and future Arts Strategies. For further information have a look at the ‘Focus Group Update’ section of this blog.
Attend the Public Consultation Seminar in September…
A day-long Consultation Seminar will take place in RUA RED on Wednesday 22nd September featuring presentations on key issues highlighted during the consultation process. There will be opportunities to showcase work generated over the period of the previous arts strategy and there will be ample opportunity to share your thoughts, concerns and priorities for the future. To book a place please contact RUA RED arts centre at Tel: 01-4515860 or by email: info@ruared.ie
Finding relevant documents…
Relevant Arts Office publications are available (at no cost) on the arts website http://arts.southdublin.ie including the previous five year Arts Strategy 2006-2010.
Participation in any or all aspects of the public consultation is free-of-charge.
Submission to South Dublin Council Arts Strategy 2010 - Sue Hassett:PART 1
ReplyDeleteI am concerned with the local arts strategy as a resident in the county with a family here, as a long-time community activist and professional social researcher and as a practising artist.
First, I would like to submit that the County is a relatively new entity without established arts structures and facilities such as the Abbey Theatre, 3rd level institutes with arts education, etc. We are resource-poor in terms of the arts as well as in terms of other infrastructure in this county. We are still struggling to catch up on the infrastructural deficit created from day one when the sprawling
housing estates in this county were built without good planning.
I suggest that we can see ourselves as victims, or as having been subjected to this or we can act as agents, we can take it as an opportunity to shape the arts in the county. While development is paused at the moment, arts infrastructure must be a priority alongside health, education, transport and other
infrastructure in future planning. Arts development and infrastructure, is I believe, part of the health and the soul of a place and is as important as economic activity.
These are some suggested strategies for the arts in the county, in no
particular order :
Currently arts resources in the county are mainly located in Tallaght
- the county arts office, Rua Red, the library, Alternative Entertainments, Tallaght Community Arts, the Civic Theatre, the Tallafest. There are some resources in Clondalkin, Lucan, Newcastle,Rathcoole, but not on the same scale. Public transport to Tallaght is not good from many parts of the county so there are issues of access and ownership for many people who do not live in Tallaght. In the long-term, I believe, we should address this as part of the County
Development Plan, Corporate Plan, and the arts and heritage strategies. In planned development such as Liffey Valley Town Centre and Clonburris, I submit that we should include arts infrastructure as a condition of the development. We should be ambitious and visionary
about this and not limit ourselves to small scale local arts resources, although these are important too. Instead, if and when new
development takes place we should research what is needed and feasible and be ready with a proposal for a national centre for the arts, as
needed in the performing arts for example, to be located in Clonburris or Liffey Valley. In addition, the Omer's Lock House in Clondalkin,
which is where the first sod of the Grand Canal was turned, should become a cultural centre incorporating arts, culture and heritage.
Hi all,
ReplyDeleteI have read the feedback from the consultation meeting with artists and am happy it reflects the discussion and excited to read the initial ideas for an artists forum, research to be undertaken, etc.
A concern I would like to raise at this stage is, who will do this work, in particular in relation to supporting and developing the artist's forum and opportunities for artist's professional development?
I do not think it is feasible for a gathering of artists to do it without on-going professional and administrative input. In my experience, artist's fora are not the most efficient structure and not the most appropriate structure for doing what is essentially arts development work, almost social enterprise development work with a focus on artists. I would propose that a full or part-time worker is needed to carry forward some of this work, with local artists. I want to make the case for this to happen within the arts strategy. My view is that, currently there are roughly fifteen arts administrators in the county but (partly because of the deficit at 3rd level arts education in the county,) there is a significant gap which is around developing professional arts practice and supports for practicing artists. I think a role like this is needed, and I think local industries might fund it if approached in the right way. As I see it, the role would be to work with local artists to develop cultural dynamism and to pilot, develop and put in place assessment, mentoring and networking opportunities for local artists, in a community based structure. The person's role would not be to do all of that but to develop it as a structure within the county, linked to all of the other agencies such as the local authority, arts organisations and agencies, partnerships, enterprise board, corporate citizens, community sector, etc.
The Artist's Forum I see as having a different role, i.e. of artists learning about each other's work and building synergistic practice and linking to arts agencies so that artists presence and practice is stronger in the county. I do not see artists as necessarily having the skills, the time or the interest to do arts development work, though an artist's forum could run an artist's website for example and would be very useful for individual arts practices and for creating cultural dynamism in the county.
Unfortunately I have a family event on 29th September which means I cannot attend the initial Artist's Forum meeting. I hope people are reading this blog though there's not much feedback, and please, would some people please contribute to the blogspot, it's getting very lonely, I think I see the tumbleweed....
Best wishes
Sue