Councillors opt to ditch idea of museum and keep artists studios on Chatham Row

Early last week, artists in the Dean Art Studios that overlooks Chatham Row in the south inner-city learnt that the council-owned property is likely to be handed over soon to new management.

A subcommittee of councillors and council officials – set up to decide what the old red brick building should be long-term – has said it should stay as studios, members told a recent arts committee meeting.

But they favour a new operator, they said.

PressUp Hospitality Group had been running the studios in the old music college, short-term. But a council steering group has decided, after interviews, to offer the role to Flux, the group that used to be known as Block T.

Last Thursday, behind his desk on the top floor of the Dean Art Studios, artist Brian Teeling said he is worried about what that will mean for more than 40 artists who are currently there.

“There’s no way of knowing right now and what I think is present in our minds is the decision by the council,” he said.

Their residencies are currently free, and his fear is that if this switches to a classic rental model, many will be out of a space, he says. “Why would the council want to move from a rent-free supported model that’s multidisciplinary?”

At a council meeting on Monday, councillors on the steering group that made the decision said they’ve done it through a transparent process, given past criticism of how council-owned buildings – including this one – had been allocated.

Flux had presented a community-driven plan, says Cat O’Driscoll, the Social Democrats councillor. “They really want to do work with the locality, with the schools in the area. That really met our criteria in a nice way. The gates don’t close.”

Chris Cullen, the co-founder of Flux, has said that once the new group has arranged the new terms and timelines with the council, they will look at ways to facilitate the artists currently working in the studios.

Finding a long-term use

Since the college of music left Chatham Row in mid-2020, Dublin City Council has been looking at what the building should be used for, long-term.

Plans on the table in the years since have included selling it, putting in a museum or converting its current short-term use as arts studios to a more permanent set-up. The last of these seems to have won out.

In May 2022 – when Dublin City Council leased the building on a temporary basis to Holtend Ltd, a subsidiary of PressUp – it was for 12 months, at €20,000 for the year.

PressUp turned it into rent-free studios and offices for artists, with the official opening in early August that year.

While the artists settled in, councillors debated what to use the building for long-term – and expressed concern about opaque decision-making around how council buildings are allocated.

In September 2022, a memo signed off by Richard Shakespeare – then assistant chief executive, now chief executive – said it should become a civic museum. It didn’t mention keeping it as artists’ studios.

Instead, it suggested a Dublin Fire Brigade heritage centre, or displaying items from a council collection, such as weights and measures, the Wide Streets Commission maps, or the Lord Mayor’s coach.

Members of the committee were doubtful though, and set up a steering group to weigh up other options.

The group drew in councillors for the council’s South East Area – which includes Chatham Row – and the arts committee, says Cat O’Driscoll, a Social Democrats councillor and steering group member.

“And we had a few meetings where we really struggled to get an idea for a vibrant museum,” O’Driscoll says.

That and the shortage of cultural and artist studio spaces within the city informed the steering group’s eventual decision to drop the municipal museum ideas, she says. “We put an open call to the cultural sector, around spring last year.”

The subcommittee asked candidates to consider if Chatham Row would be for public, private or semi-private use, she said. “Like bookable spaces for community use, or places you can walk into, like a museum.”

On 10 November, the subcommittee interviewed seven organisations, including the Dean Art Studios, the Irish Theatre Institute, Music Alliance Ireland, Pallas Projects and Flux, according to a report to the arts committee.

The interview plan considered issues such as governance, finance and organisational capacity and sustainability, the report says.

Three interviewees – Flux, Pallas and the Irish Theatre Institute – got qualifying marks. Flux ranked highest.

In the end, Flux, a not-for-profit organisation, which currently manages studio spaces in the Digital Hub in Dublin 8, came out favourite.

Next, Flux and the council will negotiate a contract, wrapping it all up by the end of March 2024, the report says. If they can’t agree, council officials can move to the next candidate on the list.

Deciding factors

City Arts Officer Ray Yeates said at the arts committee meeting that there were many reasons why organisations may not have met the criteria decided by the subcommittee, including how they planned to engage with local communities.

“They would have fallen down perhaps on the combination of practice, participation and public, and might have been just biased towards private use of the building,” Yeates said.

Buildings which facilitate the arts come under criticism because they aren’t always public-facing spaces, he said. “Flux presented very strongly on participation in the local community, participation by the public in classes as well as studio uses.”

On Tuesday evening, Flux co-founder Chris Cullen says its proposal is to continue Chatham Row’s use as studio space, while adding several public-facing elements.

Included in this is a classroom and community space for creative workshops, rehearsals and screenings, alongside exhibition space and a possible coffee shop, he says.

“This provides a sustainable, long-term plan for the building and ensures that a large section of the local community get to make use of the space as a cultural resource,” he said.

Kate Farnon, the director of The Dean Art Studios, says that they have submitted an appeal to the subcommittee’s decision. “Our appeal is based on what we believe to be a negative bias, and it’s ultimately challenging how the process was done.”

From here to there

Residents of the Dean Art Studios have voiced their concerns on social media.

At the arts committee meeting on Monday, Willie White of the Dublin Theatre Festival said that this changeover is going to be disruptive for artists. “But the real issue is that there is not enough space for artists in Dublin city.”

Claire Byrne, a Green Party councillor and steering group member, said the council is on the cusp of delivering around 60 new studio spaces.

She pointed to planned studios at Artane Place, at 8 and 9 Merchant’s Quay, and in  and the former Eden Restaurant in Temple Bar’s Meeting House Square.

The old Filmbase building on Curved Street is also set to bring in new residents, according to a council press statement from June. A site on Bridgefoot Street has also been lined up for 20 new temporary units for artists.

More than half of the spaces will be in use before the end of 2024 and the remainder in early 2025, the council’s website says.

Give Us The Night campaigner and arts committee member Sunil Sharpe asked whether, given that upwards of 44 artists could lose their spaces, the council or PressUp has identified other spaces that PressUp could use?

Yeates did not give a response to Sharpe’s query.

On Tuesday evening, Cullen, the co-founder of Flux, said they will look to support the current artists-in-residence. “We will absolutely be exploring ways to facilitate those artists and to minimise disruption.”

Councillor Byrne, at the meeting, said the arts committee had previously voiced concerns over the opacity of the process through which the council gave PressUp “meanwhile use” of the building while the working group decided what to do with it in the long-term.

“We needed a transparent process, and that is what happened,” she said.

It was the same process that has gone into revitalising Filmbase, she said. “And that we would hope to continue to use for the other spaces that we have, Merchant’s Quay and Eden coming on in the not too distant future.”

Yeates, the city art officer, said that Flux has indicated that it is open to accommodating as many current residents as they can.

Teeling, one of the artists currently in the Chatham Row studios, said he is worried many won’t be able to stay if it is no longer rent free. “That’s not something I’d be able to afford.”

Teeling says its residents are from all backgrounds, he says. “There’s artists from working-class backgrounds, we’ve quite a nice gender balance.”

Kate Farnon says switching away from a rent-free model will exclude a lot of artists currently in the space. “There will be those who will go back to working from their bedroom, or shared accommodation, or won’t be able to continue their practice.”

“It was something that was a part of my strategy if we got the longer-term lease,” she says.

Cullen says he cannot speculate on rates as this will depend on the terms of the lease agreement. “They will certainly be made as affordable as possible as this is one of our main aims.”

Chatham Row has become a second home to many artists, Teeling says. “In a city that is increasingly hostile to the arts, it feels like a mini utopia, and now you’re told you have to pay for that through no fault of your own.”

It was beneficial to those who struggled in Dublin, including one former resident who had to commute from Cork, he says. “There is a community of people here who wouldn’t necessarily have come together if it hadn’t existed.”

UPDATE: This article was updated at 11.21 on 2 December to add to one of Sunil Sharpe’s comments.