Press release: For immediate release
FIRE STATION ARTISTS’ STUDIOS
20TH ANNIVERSARY
Dublin’s unique residential arts studios celebrate their 20th anniversary
this November. The Fire Station Artists’ Studios have to date been home to
over 80 artists including Sean Hillen, Corban Walker, Alice Maher, Jesse
Jones and Patrick Graham, and have supported over 100 artists annually.
Located in north east inner city Dublin, the studios were established twenty
years ago in 1993, and are taking this opportunity to celebrate both the
facilities that they offer and their artists, past and present. Happily the Fire
Station is also expanding, and will be in the position to offer 10 residential
studios in the future.
Clodagh Kenny, director of Fire Station Artist Studios said, “For 20 years Fire
Station has been supporting artists to live and work in Ireland. We are an
often hidden support that enables the artist to make the work you see in a
gallery, school or public art project. Fire Station is a unique and invaluable
organisation that values the artist by providing not only the space and
purpose-built facilities to create work, but also a place to live in Ireland’s
capital.”
To mark the 20 years, the Fire Station will be holding an unprecedented day
of celebration, opening the Studios to the public on Thursday 28th November.
There will be demonstrations of ceramics, metal and glass in the Sculpture
Workshop. In addition there will be a performance by The Performance
Collective with a resident artist. Residential artists will be installing work
around the building, and images from the Studios’ Community Studio Award
and Public Art Programme will be projected on the ground floor of
the main building. There will also be a number of public conversations, which
will feature Sarah Browne, Mark Garry, Martin Healy, Jesse Jones, Patrick
Graham, Roisin Hogan, Brian Connolly and Amanda Coogan.
Fire Station is a unique facility currently offering 8 subsidised combined living
and working studios for Irish and international artists, large scale sculpture
workshop facilities and training opportunities for artists. Artists go though a
highly competitive selection process to be awarded a residency, and if
successful may stay up to 2 years and 9 months.
The Studios are located on Lower Buckingham Street in a former fire station,
one of 4 Dublin fire stations built in the early 1900s. It was de-commissioned
in the 1980s and forms part of the local community of the north-east inner city.
Buckingham Street was once part of Georgian Dublin’s most-fashionable
district. The passing of that era, the proximity of the docks and development
northwards saw workers and their families put down the roots of a community
that still exists today.
For the past thirty years, drugs and their devastating effects have been a fact
of life for people living here. Leo Higgins' sculpture 'Home', project-managed
by and partly made in the Fire Station is a monument to the memory of all
those who died as a direct or indirect result of heroin, and a permanent
testament to a community surviving and fighting back. The monument is also
a reminder of the ongoing relationships the Studios have within their locality.
Fire Station has always been a key advocate and supporter of socially
engaged arts practice, with activities such as the Community Studio Award
and Public Art Programme, and has commissioned a significant number of
groundbreaking collaborative public art projects.
Looking to the future, Fire Station can also announce the artists who will be
taking up residence in 2014. The artists selected for long-term residencies (2
years and 9 months) are Ruth Lyons, David O’Kane, Seamus Nolan and
Gareth Kennedy. International artists selected for short-term residencies are
James Westwater (USA), Jean-Paul Kelly (Canada), Leah Garnett (USA)
and Julia McInerney (USA).
Fire Station are also converting the building next door into two additional
residential studios and at ground floor level a flexible working space,
increasing the number of studios they offer from 8 to 10.
Fire Station Artists’ Studios is funded by the Arts Council and supported by
Dublin City Council.
For further information:
Fire Station Artists' Studios
9-11 Lower Buckingham Street, Dublin 1, Ireland
Tel: 01 855 6735
http://www.firestation.ie/
https://www.facebook.com/FireStationArtistsStudios
https://twitter.com/fsartiststudios
For further media information:
Stephanie Dickenson / Kate Bowe / Sarah Dee at Kate Bowe PR
Tel: 01 652 0143
Stephanie@katebowepr.ie / kate@katebowepr.ie / sarah.dee@katebowepr.ie