Faced with a lack of alternatives teenagers are drawn to overlooked, overgrown
and forgotten spaces to find a territory they can claim as their own. In the
eyes of the authorities teenagers are a nuisance and their use of public space,
hanging out, is dismissed as ‘anti-social behaviour’. Glittery
Embrace proposes an alternative viewpoint in which teenagers are viewed as
expert users of public space who often identify valuable potential and possibility. more>>
Investigating ideas of community in contemporary rural Ireland, Commonage invites artists and architects to undertake a radical exploration of the built environment of Callan, Co. Kilkenny. This is a town that is unique yet familiar and whose stage has become a fertile ground for contemplation and research. Jo Anne Butler and Tara Kennedy (Culturstruction) and Rosie Lynch are co-curators of Commonage. more>>
Reading Richard Sennett’s book The Craftsman, Dublin City Architect Ali Grehan was intrigued by a passage describing construction work at the Vatican carried out by Pope Sixtus V. When designing new work, it said, the Pope used descriptive words, never drawings, to convey his ideas directly to his craftsman. In August 2009 we were asked by Dublin City Council Architects Department to facilitate a series of workshops in which children were asked to design a temporary public space. more>>
Along a busy stretch of dual carriageway in South County Dublin glossy hoarding announces a new apartment development. The advertisement images features a woman with an asparagus tip speared daintily on her fork. The accompanying text makes fanciful promises. 'Few addresses generate this kind of dream'. Today the apartments are part inhabited and part un-finished, and a section of the hoarding still remains, proclaiming 'the spirit of gracious living' to all passing traffic. more>>
The area around Dublin's North Strand Road is dominated by urban and inter-urban transport routes. Train lines, DART lines, the canal and a busy road slice through this inner city community. On a large scale, the area is well connected; on a small scale, the same transport networks enclose and isolate. Particularly disconcerting are the disjointed streets, narrow pedestrian bridges and rhythm of semi-derilict arches created by the elevated tracks of the DART and inter-city trains. The exhibition Ersilia plays with how these spaces – created by the desire for movement in and out of the city – can themselves become inhabited. more>>
Fishing with a kite, dancing in the middle of roundabout, an inflatable bandstand...In Spring 2009, as Ireland dived headlong into the worst recession in the history of the state, Culturstruction curated a silent year, an exhibition of work by artists Gareth Kennedy , Ruth Lyons and Bea McMahon, at the LAB, Foley Street, Dublin. Three video works explored ideas of personal freedom and public control set within the context of the rapid acceleration and subsequent collapse of Ireland's building industry. The exhibition was launched by Dublin City Architect, Ali Grehan and closed with a double bill talk by Gareth Kennedy and Gerry Cahill Architects. more>>
Initiated to coincide with the Irish Architecture Foundation's Open House Dublin event in 2008, this project investigated ways artists could playfully and provocatively stimulate debate on architecture, planning and built environment within the existing public platform of Open House. more>>
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