Council setting up registry to connect arts groups with arts spaces available in the city

The City Arts Office is setting up a registry for arts and cultural groups looking for temporary or permanent work spaces, as the council pushes to grow the number of artist studios in the city.

The aim of the database is to gather a list of collectives and organisations seeking spaces to rent, lease, manage or purchase, said a council press release on 3 March.

“You could have everything from a single artist looking for a studio, to a music collective looking for work units, rehearsal spaces, or people looking to build a theatre,” said City Arts Officer Ray Yeates on Monday afternoon.

The database is the latest step in Dublin City Council’s effort to make good on its “5 percent” policy.

Set out in the council’s development plan for 2022 to 2028, the policy says that big developments must give over at least 5 percent of their space to be used for community, arts and culture.

The idea is that the council can keep groups on the register informed about any spaces that become available, so they can apply for them.

Developers who want to approach a cultural or artist group will also be able to see the register, Yeates says. “So it’s just making sure that everyone knows everything.”

Artists and community groups say they’re watching closely to see how the policy goes, wary that spaces could lie empty, should the developer build the infrastructure, but drag their heels when it comes to actually bringing artists in.

Or that the dependence on private developers to provide studios could mute critiques of their part in the city’s affordable housing crisis.

Centralised database

Most developers were negative about the 5 percent scheme when the City Arts Office first approached them in November 2023,  Yeates told councillors at a meeting last month.

The complaint was that it would reduce their return on investment and yield, he said.

But some developers have started to use a toolkit put out by the Arts Office to guide their plans, he said, and the mood has shifted to mixed feelings.

Meetings with developers made the need for a registry clear, said Yeates on Monday. “We wanted to be as competent as we could possibly be so that they could make the decisions.”

The developers behind the Marshall Yards complex on the East Road in the Docklands are the first to engage with the scheme, said Social Democrats Councillor Cat O’Driscoll on Monday.

“They hired a consultant and they set up an online forum asking for anyone looking for spaces to fill it out,” she said.

The council’s register makes that process more simplified and centralised, O’Driscoll says. “Why expect every arts organisation to apply for each space?”

Hopefully, conversations between organisations and developers can start as early as possible, she says.

“So that the co-design element can be included, so that the space is designed for the tenant while the whole place is developed, meaning there is no need to retrofit afterwards,” she says.

It looks as if this scheme is starting to work, Yeates says. “Now, whether it turns into actual projects, I don’t know.”

While the first call-out to submit to the registry is due to officially close on 24 of March, the Arts Office will continue to collect names, Yeates said on Monday.

Delivering goods

The intention behind the registry is good, says Abaigeal Meek, creative director of the Pimlico Project and one of the people behind Liberties SOS, an Instagram page which highlights gentrification in Dublin 8.

“It was a reaction to a complete lack of any cultural or public spaces,” she said of the percent policy.

But the issue remains that the promise of cultural spaces in such developments doesn’t always come to pass, even if they are agreed in the planning, she says.

She points towards how the company Patrizia is pushing to change the use of the ground floor of The Eight Building on Newmarket, from a market to a convenience store.

Similarly, at two Staycity aparthotels – on Francis Street and Little Mary Street – spaces that are supposed to be turned into studios and a performance/exhibition hall have been sitting vacant for years.

A spokesperson for Staycity said in late February that they are now in advanced discussions with an arts group to occupy Little Mary Street’s studio spaces.

“Planning and consultation with key stakeholders is also underway regarding the Francis Street space to see it activated,” they said.

Staycity did give the space to artists Eve Wood and Aoife Ward for a show, and they openly satirised the company and their failure to deliver on a promised permanent exhibition space back in August 2023.

But Meek says she is worried about what artist collectives or organisations may be deemed acceptable in other similar developments.

Artists who use the spaces could end up sanitising their works, she says. “We’re in a housing crisis. A lot of these buildings represent part of the problem.”

“Many artists are critiquing that, so I would be concerned about who makes the cut? That’s problematic,” said Meek.

That would be difficult to police, says Yeates, the City Arts Officer.

Sebastian Adams, director and co-founder of Unit 44 on Prussia Street – which is due to leave its space at the end of this month after the property was sold to a developer back in November – said a centralised registry is positive for artists.

But it would be worrying if the council becomes too reliant on the 5 percent provision to address the city’s deficit in performance and workspaces for artists, said Adams.

“Firstly, it forces artists into this negotiation with developers,” he said, “and it gives them very little choice over the type of space they’ll end up in, because many of these spaces are going to be very similar ground floor units.”

The council, while looking at providing space in new developments, should also be devoting its attention towards existing properties in their ownership, he says.

That however, can prove quite costly, with the City Arts Office confirming that it had to halt plans to turn the old, disused Merrion railway station into an artist residency, according to a South-East Area Committee report on 10 February.

The estimate on those restoration works was €1.5 million, the report from the Arts Office said, and no budget could be identified to fund the work.