Welcome from Creative Policies Programme Director Nollaig Ó Fiongháile

We are delighted to welcome you to DL5-8, a suite of events taking place in Dún Laoghaire, every Thursday evening from 5pm - 8pm with a late events programme of live bands from 10 pm to late. The programme runs for over a month from May 20 - June 17, 2010 and blends improvised spontaneity with curated eventing.

Each Thursday evening we begin our artists’ route with film screenings and live performances at 5pm in the Pavilion Gallery followed by an ‘artists’ talks’ series on high-profile artist projects and collectives from Dublin, Bologna, Helsinki, Reykjavik, & Newcastle at 6 pm at the Sunshine Café. Meanwhile, art projects and performances by Naomi Sex and Sinéad McCann will be underway throughout each Thursday evening at the temporal artists’ studios on Lower George’s St. Damien Evans’ Mixed-Ground Jazz Series profiling jazz artists, local and international, takes place at 7+pm at Weirs Bar. Our late evening events at the Purty Kitchen, Dún Laoghaire begin at 10pm with the Drazen Derek Improvised Company and showcases a series of live, world music bands featuring Koshka, Passer Bem, Cafe Orchestra, the North Strand Kontra Band and the tradfutures collective with invited guests. On June 17th, the pilot series will culminate with an international conference ‘Creative Policies in Practice’ to take place at Dún Laoghaire Council Chambers profiling selected speakers and artists active in the academy and in public culture.

This event will consider how artist-researchers, while evolving high–level engagement in art practice, are evolving new models, new alliances and performance communities within and without the academy. The programme highlights the ideas of ‘making things happen’, ‘uncovering new alliances’ and ‘interdisciplinary investigations’ to guide the focus and direction in our investigations in evolving experimental performance-led models & communities.

The DL5-8 events programme and June 17 conference will be of interest to anyone interested in artistic and performance events and it will be of special interest to those of you concerned with artist actions, artist collectives and how we may devise new methods and new practices to engage a culturally diverse public and together, animate our civic space. Enjoy!