IN PLACE is a collective of mixed media artists based in Dublin. Their latest exhibition, held from September 29th to October 3rd, transformed a vacant office space on Tara Street in central Dublin into a functioning art gallery.
The initiative aims is to “reframe how we view disused urban space.” It has developed into a community of artists from Dublin, Belfast and Glasgow. The initiative aims to look with fresh eyes upon neglected, vacant spaces in urban centres which may be discounted as being of use to the community. IN PLACE are transforming these vacant sites or “non-spaces” into cultural hubs in which artistic vision can take root. IN PLACE aims to challenge the assumptions that we have of disused urban spaces, as spaces with which we cannot engage, whose aesthetic or functional value is not appreciated and whose order in the urban community is undermined.
IN PLACE invites the viewer to engage with these spaces by reconsidering our perception of the city’s vacant spaces. The exhibition encourages the viewer to reimagine these spaces as places which may provide a platform for cultural initiatives and as places which may shape urban landscapes and their identities. In doing so we can re-evaluate the potential of these spaces in the everyday lives of those living in urban centres.
The exhibition engaged with a variety of media, from works on steel, in oil and acrylic paints, spray paint and various mediums of sculpture. This merges to create a richly diverse exhibition which is both aesthetically engaging and meditative as the south central space is transformed in both function and atmosphere. The exhibition features work by Dublin artists Stephen Burke, James Kirwan, Grace Kristensen, Jordan McQuaid and Louise Rowland to name but a few.
As you walk through the exhibition, considering the gallery space and artwork together becomes central to your experience and this encompasses what IN PLACE are trying to achieve, by considering the urban site and situation which has informed the pieces in this exhibition. We are enabled to contextualise the space we are in.
This practise of reclaiming vacant spaces as a platform for the arts to flourish is both innovative and refreshing. IN PLACE should serve as a landmark of the potential our cities vacant spaces have and what could be realised simply by changing our assumptions about what these neglected spaces represent.
