‘DL5-8’ (Dun Laoghaire 5 pm to 8 pm) is the pilot project undertaken by an artist-research collective from the Graduate School of Creative Arts & Media GradCAM developing new ideas in public culture. DL5-8 project is undertaken by GradCAM, on-site in Dun Laoghaire, in association with Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council with business owners and residents in Dun Laoghaire. We are set the task to consider models and practices by which we may ‘animate Dún Laoghaire Town Centre from 5.00-8.00 pm, each Thursday, May-June 2010 in so doing improve the civic life of a suburban centre after office hours.

The process by which we have undertaken to deliver this task is in four concrete steps.

1) Public Space Mapping Audit
The Public Space Mapping Research forms part of the ‘Creative Policies for the Creative City’ project of GradCAM at IADT in association with Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. It addressed a suburban centre’s civic life outside of office hours. The mapping research was carried out in the Summer of 2009 on our behalf with Alan Mee Architects with a group of architects and artists based in UCD School of Architecture, Landscape & Civil Engineering and taking part in the Now What Summer School initiative.

The mapping exercise audited and set the stage for understanding how the public space is currently in use; to demonstrate where people go, congregate, why and how? What might be the inhibitors and whether there are shelters or rest areas for people to use in the public space; how the lighting affects usage and where graffiti occurs as this tends to suggest a congregation site. In so doing, this exercise allows us to consider how we may enhance and use the public space-through, observing, recording and mapping. It serves as a 2D assessment of the overall public life of the community and place, with data collection, mapping, and conclusions demonstrating the opportunities for making links, physical, economic, social and cultural between outdoor, indoor, public and private business, and local government.

For further information and to access the Public Space Mapping Audit download here.

2) DL5-8 Programme
DL5-8 Programme, is a suite of events including film screenings with live performances, a public talks series with artists and creative thinkers, temporary art works, traditional & improvised music gigs featuring local and international artists; all taking place in Dun Laoghaire, every Thursday evening from 5pm - 8 pm 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.
For Information on DL5-8 download the DL5-8 Project Programme here.
For Press information on DL5-8 download press release and press contacts here.

3) Artists Temporal Residencies Programme
Artists Temporal Residencies Programme involves the coordination of agreements between artists and proprietors of ground-level retail and commercial spaces in Dún Laoghaire. These agreements provide the opportunity for a professional musician or artist to inhabit vacant retail spaces and occupy them for use as studio space, exhibition space and/or performance. To do so, contracts and agreements have been developed to secure necessary conditions to ensure health & safety, insurance cover and protection for both landlord and artist.

4) Artist-led Models
Artist-led policies have been designed to underpin the DL5-8 programme. The actions underway include 'artist collective agreements' - a series of agreements between artists, the academy, businesses and the local authority that have been implemented whereby investment from each has generated a sustainable events program and site-based exhibition budget. Initially, the academy invests 30% of programming fees under an 'artist honarium' with the business and local authority financing 30% each respectively and the artists offering a 10% input. This has resulted in the establishment of artist studios in previously vacant retail spaces with contracts formed between the landlords, the local authority and the artist. It has resulted in a series of events, programmed and directed by a lead artist of high-level professional standard, with a diverse range of visiting artists profiled each week. The offer has involved a choice of events, ensembles, inter-disciplinary collaborations with a range of performance groups of traditional, world, jazz and improvised musics. The policy of a 30/ 30 / 30 financing rule between the academy, local government and local business offers a unique, sustainable model for eventing in the public space.

The policy titled 'musicians & artist honarium' underpins the planning and eventing of the DL5-8 programme. The lead artists in question are financed by the university with an honorarium and undertake to prepare, plan, programme and implement a series of events in the public space. This relationship may become a sustainable one with agreement from an appropriate government agency, whereby artists with an active record of annual performances and exhibitions would acquire state recognition as a professional 'honored' artist. By doing so, artists are awarded an 'honorarium' for which they are contracted to programme and deliver a range of performance events to non-commercial venues and to those commercial venues that are working to the co-financing rule. In so doing, the honorarium system may apply to both commercial and non-commercial venues. The artist may then earn above the honorarium without penalty. This policy has the potential effect of offering artists a reliable opportunity to work as a professional, with standard levels of personal security experienced and expected by society today. It provides local and small scale communities and business’ access to artists of a high level, while also animating our community lives and public space with international and local based cultural eventing.

For further information on these models; briefing docs are underway and will be available soon.

Acknowledgements