2002




ExchangeFM

ExchangeFM is part of Visualise, a series of advance projects to VISUAL – The Centre for Contemporary Art, Carlow

ExchangeFM is a collaborative public art project, initiated and developed by artist Daniel Jewesbury, working with immigrants living in Carlow, and curated by the National Sculpture Factory under Mary McCarthy, NSF’s former Director. The programme aims to enhance dialogue and understanding between immigrants and the host community.

A specially launched radio station, ExchangeFM, will be broadcast live on 102.3 FM from 22 February – 8 March 2003 (6 – 8pm daily), including interviews, music, discussions and short documentary pieces investigating issues affecting immigrant communities in Carlow and in Ireland generally.
The artist was particularly keen to work with radio as he believes that ‘it has a particular aesthetic, and ‘aspatial’ medium which crosses physical barriers and transgresses the built environment in order to connect disparate groups of people, allowing them to reflect on what they hear and construct a whole world from what they hear. It encapsulates the very idea of the ‘public sphere’ and people's sense of belonging to that, particularly in relation to the question of inclusion in a society, which is so central to the ExchangeFM project as a whole.

ExchangeFM will also incorporate a weekly series of media interventions in the Carlow Nationalist. The artist will also produce a number of short films for screening in cinemas both locally and nationally.

Previous projects presented as part of Visualise have included Brian Hand’s ''The Car Called the Manager', 'Hot Air' and 'Visual Cookie/Stimulation Café'.

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Daylighting the City

Daylighting the City Roundtable Discussion
Millennium Hall, Cork City Hall
Wednesday 19 June 2002

Chaired by Mick Wilson, artist, writer & lecturer with panellists Mary McCarthy (National Sculpture Factory), Isabel Vasseur (Art Project Management, London) and Matthew Lennon (Horsehead International)

Artists participating in the project: Cindy Cummings, Jools Gilson-Ellis, Danny McCarthy, Julie McGowan, Dara McGrath, Tracey McVerry, Fiona Ni Mhaoilir, Adrian O'Connell, Una Quigley.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
Good morning and welcome to the National Sculpture Factory round table discussion on "Daylighting the City". This project funded by the Arts Council's Audience Development Award and Cork City Council's Per Cent for Art Scheme. It is our intention with this project through both the works themselves and the evaluation of the project as a whole, it will inform public art commissioning policy in the city and inform the debate nationally.

As most of you are aware, this is a continuation of the debates that the National Sculpture Factory has initiated previously, both through our on-going lecture series, Art and Architecture: The Urban Interface, our conference in 2000 on Public Art: Making it Work and the large conference on Urban Design held here in Cork, this time last year, with Cork Midsummer Festival. Indeed, it was out of these series of discussions that the initial ideas for this project came.

We are talking about the role of creativity in urban planning and Cork particularly, as a city in Ireland, is undergoing considerable regeneration, specifically through the proposed redevelopment of its Docklands, which is on our doorstep here in City Hall. Key questions arose out of that urban design conference. Critically, what is the role cultural practitioners can have in shaping their city. By cultural practitioners, I mean artists, arts managers and policy makers. What is our role and how can we contribute to the debate on redefining the city. We think that we have a significant and considerable role to play as the creative sector in raising debate and highlighting specific issues.

Through this project, we have addressed 'Daylighting the City'. It is a new language of experimentation, looking at how we can draw attention to issues through creative mitigation. It is probably worth, at this stage, summarising our initial aims for this project as submitted to the Arts Council in applying for the Audience Development Award. The process was to demand an increased engagement and heightened experience for all those involved in the dialogue. Essentially the primary audience for the project was the nine artists involved, four from Belfast and five from Cork.

We acknowledge that in basic terms, the project might not have 'increased audience numbers' but, more significantly, it has directly involved a large number of stakeholders in realising the project, from the negotiation of sites to the involvement of numerous staff across departments in the City Council, other site owners and companies based in the area who all facilitated the presentation of works. There is, therefore, already an engaged audience in the process, which has been critical to the project and the achievement of its initial aims.

We had two other underlying aims throughout the project. The principal one was to establish designated sites for culture in Cork city, looking at new sites and creating site-specific works by participating cultural practitioners in these sites. The sites in which we are particularly interested are in the Docklands, this new area for the city. All the installations on view for this project this week, therefore, are site-specific, new works. Secondly, they are works created by the artists in response to a brief, which was to look at the role of the artist in terms of an expanding urban city. I think that when you see the works, you will appreciate the range and complexity of responses, which the artists have achieved. It is not easy to compete in that very busy and very open environment.

In addition, there were other longer-term aims to the project. They were to enhance the professional standing of the artist in the public design debate to ensure that cultural practitioners can play that critical role and make a real contribution. To make the definition of 'community' more visible to both local and national authorities, particularly in terms of looking at the design and development of community. To establish concepts of cultural continuity into the master plan for Cork's Docklands; we hope that the cultural sector can be engaged right from the outset, not only by ensuring that a cultural role is set out in the development plan. There are also other interesting opportunities such as using the cultural sector to encourage people to explore particular sites in the docklands before they are demolished and rebuilt. Finally, we want to create a model, which goes beyond local boundaries of definitions of cultural development to create a new model of cultural engagement. In terms of the National Sculpture Factory's wider remit; we want to actively encourage this as the start of an on-going process. From our perspective, the nine artists have engaged at the highest level, particularly conceptually. What we were able to provide was guidance and, I hope, a support structure and resources on which the artists were able to call to realise their visions. I would see that as the organisation's key and critical role and I hope that today we would be able to discuss the notion of commissioning temporary work, its role in audience development and in wider urban regeneration.

Isabel Vasseur, who will be presenting her wider lecture this evening, is going to speak briefly on the matter and Matthew Lennon of HorseHead International, the guest curator of the project, is going to present his thoughts from the point of view of curatorial practice, and Mick Wilson will chair the session and throw it open to the floor. Firstly, I would like to introduce Matthew Lennon, guest curator of Daylighting the City.

Matthew Lennon, Horsehead International:
I think in these kinds of situations, what I usually do initially is look at 'place'. The notion of 'place' is central to the project so I curate sites before I even consider which artists might go into those sites. The kinds of sites I like are under-used; under-developed, over-looked or even in a state of ruin because every city has these and these are usually the areas around which planning is taking place. Those plans may lay fallow for decades and those sites may lay fallow for decades so what I normally look for is ways of engaging those sites before the architects go in, before the engineers are there and often before the city planners are there. In terms of artists, I don't look for themes; I look for people who have skills and a diversity of materials that they utilise because these are the things that, in the long term, will make the city. By doing it this way, I find that the general public becomes very engaged because you initiate a process of questions and not answers. You are, therefore, going into a situation in which you allow the passers by to talk to the artists and see what they are doing. Generally the first question is indeed, 'what are you doing?' and that to me initiates and embraces a deeper remit for the project.

What happens in a lot of cities when they are planning is that they move from the 'grand scheme' to very formal and formulaic methods and by the time the project is done, the art that we often get is 'plop art'. We all know where it's heading. I have found that, in working as a public arts commissioner, in a lot of these committees the artist is often the most underpaid professional on the panel and that art is the first area that will get cut, followed usually by landscaping. So, in Daylighting the City, we wanted to give a profile to the artist to let the city know that the artist has a role in the development and in the planning. We also want to get a message to the city that great cities are laboratories. There is nothing that is very finished and your cultural practitioners bring that sensibility at all times.

When you walk around the sites and the project, you will see a great difference in the materials used, from the gentle interventions to more stark interventions . . . the use of sound to the use of video. That range and diversity of approach is really what the modern planning situation is about and it is also what a lot of cities are not taking advantage of. If you are going to be a cultural capital, you have to facilitate cultural activity and you should do that in every phase and at every level. I think it is important in projects like this and in looking at planning in cities, that we move away from a language of sustainable development to a language of cultural continuity.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management, London:
Firstly, I would like to congratulate Cork on being awarded the European City of Culture 2005 accolade, which is absolutely fantastic. I have been talking to the people in England involved in the cities that are also vying for that accolade and I know that it is tough. Also congratulations for Daylighting the City, which I think, are a wonderful project.

I am just going to talk briefly on a number of the projects in which I have been involved but I would just say that, holistically, I have been working on the redevelopment of cities for the past 22 years. Art is a very expedient business. It, for the most part, will go where the money is and usually the money is in redevelopment. It is often very quickly that the redevelopers and the artists realise that they can make a pact because they have things in common.

The most useful examples - and I will be illustrating some of these more fully in my lecture this evening - are probably the Garden Festival movement. Some of the people here will probably be too young to remember these but they were the UK's Department of Environment's efforts to redevelop docklands, for the most part, and they would spend something in the order of £35 million in those days just to clean up the land and another £35 million was found to enhance the site to make a Festival. They were rather like the German Garden Festivals but different in so much as Germany did not have a lot of parks and gardens, unlike the UK. They were fantastic and successful events and inspired local authorities across the country to do likewise, commissioning art at the same fever pitch. For example, that first Liverpool Garden Festival had a lot of animal sculptures and suddenly there were animal sculpture parks springing up across the UK. Some of them have died away and gone up to animal heaven but it was amazing as the phones of the Arts Council and the arts organisations started hopping as people started clambering for public art - that was a time of sculptures, by the way, not interventions.

I have done two Garden Festivals but the most relevant project here is the European Summit occasion in Edinburgh when I create this show called Lux Europa. That did not really have any money until the Government stuffed us some money when they realised that we would look rather culturally impoverished if all these statesmen and politicians turned up and we were not really doing anything. That project was quite fun and we put light installations all over the city. Edinburgh is rather like Cork in that it has all these wonderful, different levels so that you could see about ten different projects just by standing outside your front door.

It was a temporary project - I don't think we have time here but there may be discussion from the floor on the difference between temporary and permanent. I would say, advisedly, that there is always a fashion for something and artists by then had got there fingers burnt by putting up some pretty dreadful stuff in the 1970's and 80's and then it was all decommissioned; there was too much of it and artists don't like getting caught twice. The temporary and the experimental also means the enfranchisement of the audience and we can articulate that.

How do we evaluate it? The immediate appreciation is the positive reaction, the 'word of mouth' or 'have you heard or seen?'. Then there is the critical appreciation, such as the media. The long-term appreciation is where the community actually gains confidence and so much confidence that it gains a terrific ambition because what you want to achieve is indeed ambition; you don't necessarily need lots of money just lots of ambition. Gateshead is an example of that. It had a public art committee within the council from way back, the end of the 1970's/beginning of the 80's, and then it created a 'Sculpture along the River' programme. The Tyne and Wear Development Corporation, which replaced the metropolitan council, took that up and committed more money. Gateshead was still extraordinarily ambitious even though it is an extremely poor borough council. It then did a Garden Festival, for which it got its £35 million, and then it decided it wanted a gallery and secured the Baltic which will be opening shortly. It just went from strength to strength but having just started with the public art committee. It is now taken very seriously indeed with its Angel of the North and its Foster-built music centre, which is going to be completed in 2004. It, therefore, now has a glutton of cultural glory.

Professional success and the artistic opportunities for the artists have to be exceptional. Young artists should be involved with international artists, which is great for their development. The whole question of what curators do or don't do. They have to give inspired briefs so they have to be creative as well.

I won't go on about the nature of temporary work and whether the temporary is a good or bad thing but I will say that inclusivity, which has already been touched upon, is important but what does it mean, apart from being a heading on all applications for funding. We do not get a cent in the UK at the moment unless we are educating absolutely everybody, housing absolutely everybody and curing absolutely everybody. That is, of course, rather flippant but it is important and enjoyable to do. It makes it much interesting for the artist and that is the way many artists work, especially when one considers that public art is the most dangerous thing that artists can do. You can do what you like in a gallery these days but in the public domain, it is extremely dangerous and it makes it even more dangerous perhaps by getting involved with the public. But that is also what makes it fantastically vital. But is it playing together, is it exploiting the public or is it truthfully engaging with them? If it is the latter, that is obviously good but who is the judge and what is the risk. No risk, no art.

Mick Wilson, Artist, Writer & Lecturer:
I think we will immediately open it to the floor. I would just remind you that there are really two dimensions to what we are doing here. Firstly, we are evaluating the specific project in hand but we are also looking to the more general issues that this type of intervention into the urban landscape might raise in a broader context.

Could I perhaps begin by asking some of the artists to address what they feel is the particularity of the audience raised by the very nature of temporary interventions, not just in this project but also in related projects.

Question from the floor.
Could I just ask firstly how the artists were selected for this project?

Matthew Lennon, Horsehead International:
This was a collaborative process. Mary and I discussed for quite a while the aspects and ideas of this project and we wanted to make it as an offering to the artists of Cork as it is a rare opportunity. Then because I had worked in Belfast, Mary suggested that we bring down four Belfast artists. We were not really looking at slides; we were looking at the artists in terms of their own histories and their engagements with the city and their engagements with the materials they use. It was not about going through the slide show routine and saying, 'oh, that is a nice piece'; it was really about finding artists who would be willing to work in public. As Isabel said, this is a very difficult part of the process, or it can be. Temporary public art in bigger contexts, is often destroyed by the public. I have been on shows where we have had three pieces stolen and then two days later, they were returned. I have no idea why. But that is public engagement.

So in that process you have to find artists who have willingness and bring the vitality and generosity that is necessary to engage the public.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
We also tried to choose artists who were coming from different places for that diversity of response. Also, they were artists who we felt would be willing to engage in this type of work through their practice. We made a shortlist of artists and the first nine whom we approached were willing to be part of the project. They were not asked to make specific proposals.

We facilitated a site visit where we discussed the docklands and the development of cities and outlined where we were coming from. The brief was quite open. It was essentially asking them to consider how cultural practitioners can respond to such issues of development. They then went away and developed their ideas and proposals. Our job, we felt, was not to judge those proposals but to support the realisation of them.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
Could I ask the artists if they have had any reaction or direct feedback from the public, such as when they were putting the works up. Has anything like that happened?

Una Quigley, Una Quigley, Artist:
As I have been doing my installation, a number of people have stopped to speak to me and find out what is going on. There has been very little negativity in people's responses and they have said that they will come during the week to see how the work progresses, as well as going to look at the other art works in the city. These are general people on the street. There has been really positive reaction without any negativity, which surprised me as; in particular the road has been closed specifically for my piece.

Danny McCarthy, Artist:
What I found that in explaining what my piece was about, it became apparent that people were just not really aware about the development of the docklands. These were just ordinary people on the street who came up and asked about the sound piece. I explained to them where the concept had come from, how the docklands were changing and how the river would have new walkways across it. Ordinary people did not seem to be aware of the developments that were going to happen on the docklands and certainly not on such a scale as is being planned.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
Do you think that the Docklands Development programme just is not being marketed well enough? I mean, for example, there are no banners around. People are talking about it but is there a marketing plan at all. I feel I can stir this up as I am leaving Cork tomorrow morning.

John Flynn, Sen. Engineer Docklands Development:
I am a bit surprised about the comment that people are not aware as in terms of the public exhibition which was presented, including that in the Cork Vision Centre, it was, of all the displays we have had about developments in the city, the best attended. In relation to the people who live and work in the docklands, there was a large attendance from them as well. It might be that people outside that area are not as aware of those directly involved in the area.

In response to the second comment in relation to marketing and all that, the Docklands Development Strategy in its draft form has been through the City Council. It is due to go back in the next month once all the consultations, submissions, questionnaires, etc. have all been taken on board and finalised. After that, we will be going into the marketing, selling and related campaigns. The idea was to know exactly what we are selling before we begin selling.

Clare Bywater, Arts Administrator:
I wonder if I could redirect slightly Mick's question to the artists as I would be very curious to know what the artists who are here would like to see in the Docklands, not necessarily in the form of possibilities for artworks outside but also in the form of buildings, plans, their dreams and hopes. If we don't talk about this now, I am not sure that there will ever be an opportunity to do so.

Tracey McVerry, Artist:
Although I am not from here and have only been down in Cork for the past two or three weeks for the project, I have noticed the structure of the area and seen the kind of people around living and working in the area and it is clear that it is important not to destroy what already exists. I think it would be a shame to change what exists here into something like Temple Bar or places like that.

Jools Gilson-Ellis, Artist:
My project is on Customs House Quay and so I have been spending a lot of time there, particularly talking to the people, such as the guys who work in the warehouses, and have done for many years, or are retired. In terms of that space and those people, I hope that what they have experienced, felt and thought about the nature of the space would be incorporated into whatever development happened there.

Strangely, I already feel a strange sense of responsibility to that space even though I have only spent time over the past six of so weeks working there. There is a sense that the thing that is so tempting to happen there is a Temple Bar model with restaurants, glamorous bars and that kind of thing. Yet, in doing so, what it means for somebody who works down there in a grotty cellar for 40 years could so easily be lost.

Other physical elements such as the layout of the cobbles, which is so important in relation to the flooding of the area, could also be lost. That kind of thing is important and it strikes me that the people who have been involved in the area for so long could easily not be asked or consulted on what should happen there. Perhaps also, they do not have the language to articulate their thoughts on what should happen.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
The issue which Jools has raised there is actually quite critical to this project, and as an artist she has highlighted this issue through her work which is also something on which the project as a whole and this debate hinges. In a way, does art then have a role in raising awareness of those people's concerns and does it have a role in drawing attention to issues, which master plans or other large documents cannot always address with the same effectiveness?

Oliver Dowling, Visual Arts Officer, The Arts Council:
What do people mean by the 'Temple Bar thing', as it has been mentioned three times this morning.

Adrian O'Connell, Artist
The reason why I feel I can answer that question is because my work was in relation to interviewing the local TDs from each party and they all seemed to bring up Temple Bar as well. I don't think it should be like Temple Bar at all. The one interesting thing about Temple Bar is how it has developed. It is now just for tourists; there is nothing Irish about it at all any more. It is drawing tourists but it has lost its unique identity, which it had ten or fifteen years ago. When you look at my home city of Derry, which has also been undergoing development over the past few years as well, they have not taken into consideration the buildings that already exist in the area. The large redbrick shopping centres are being built right next to the old city walls of Derry with no consideration for the latter. The monopolies come in and yes they bring the people but to the detriment of what were there previously. The same is happening with Belfast's waterfronts, although there they get put up and at least they get blown up and so come down quite quickly as well too. I think when it comes to Temple Bar, Cork as second city has a bit of an inferiority complex, rather like Derry has with Belfast. But I think that Cork has to do its own thing for its own identity and forget about Dublin and its Temple Bar. Cork is a beautiful city and does not need outside influence except to learn from their mistakes. I think you have something extraordinary here in terms of a city and community.

Mick Wilson, Artist, Writer & Lecturer:
Can I suggest that perhaps Temple Bar has been used here to flag a certain set of problems with cultural led redevelopment initiatives and perhaps it might be worth teasing out those risks which might be associated with such initiatives. I note that yesterday there was a conference on Cultural Tourism as part of Cork Midsummer Festival and it seems that the arts have been recruited as part of this broad spectrum of entertainment industries and I wonder if anybody would like to comment on that.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
Obviously there is a risk but art is a tart and will go with what ever is happening. It does not lose by that. It is also a nomad. In order to survive, it has to live in a cheaper part of town. Artists have taste, they find fantastic parts of town, they move in and developers follow. I do not think tourism is a threat to art; quite the contrary.

Matthew Lennon, Horsehead International:
I do think there is something beyond the tourism and development. When cities try to reinvent themselves, they often forget that what they are trying to do is reanimate themselves. What they are trying to do is bring back the vitality. So often when I talk to people in cities undergoing development, what they are talking about is what they remember. On planning committees, people often talk about what used to be there or happen there and then they are looking to recreate that. When that does not happen, there is often disappointment. That is perhaps sometimes where cultural practitioners can let us down in the public art domain; if they don't bring exciting projects to the table and if curators don't develop exciting attitudes for them to work in and if the city is looking for the safe, formulaic way to develop, there is usually a flat line that occurs and nobody is ever really satisfied, not the planners nor anybody. I think that great cities when they develop, they serve their own people first. They have to remember that artists are part of that constituency too and the artists have to remember that too. Indeed, that is why they have to get involved and get engaged at an early stage and to move forward with the project, often to give it impetus.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
Something which came up in the discussions at the Cultural Tourism Symposium yesterday, particularly through Justin O'Connor's presentation on Manchester and Manchester's redevelopment essentially through the cultural industries. He raised the issue of how culture can raise the value of sites through activities through cultural programmes. He also point out that cultural sectors then need to protect themselves in some ways from that encroaching development. As artists, and curators, we have a role to play in ensuring that what has been achieved and the quality of our work is not sacrificed to commercialism through ongoing development such as tourism. We need tourism to mediate some of our work internationally as long as it is a broad and diverse interpretation of what culture is. I think that potentially the problem with Temple Bar is that it has become a 'type' of cultural representation that perhaps does not reflect the diversity of cultural engagement in Ireland any more. That situation is perhaps inevitable when you become so successful in terms of your original objectives. But culture is always evolving and always developing and seeking new places. That is what is critical; we are always moving and we need to keep on moving.

Grant Collie, Design Consultant & Technical Advisor:
If I may, I would like to change the tack of the discussion slightly. I was brought up in Edinburgh and there was one major piece of public art, which I remember from my formative years. It was a kinetic sculpture in the centre of town, which was an area, which was going to undergo redevelopment. It was a beautiful piece and worked extremely well while it lasted. It was a permanent piece, which was installed temporarily. It was a very technical piece and required technical backup but the technology in the piece died after a very short period of time. Yet it remained for many years and became an object of scorn. One of the things I notice in our work and a number of art projects are that the level of investment required to ensure that works last a long time is not made in the technology. It will therefore not necessarily retain the good will of the public who might invest their feelings in it.

I'd also like to refer to the choice of public art works for a particular place. Ignoring the issues related to cultural tourism, if that is the property of the people in that area, the number of times that local people are involved in choosing or are given the opportunity to work with the artists is extremely limited. Often these works are just plonked in their areas and that is where there is a major risk and that is why people do not associate with the works and why they complain what they don't know what it is all about as they have not been given any involvement in it. Sometimes it does happen successfully although in Cork the lines of communication are quite good but it does seem to be a widespread problem, happening all over the world.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
It does indeed not work all over the world and the problem is often that you have committees, which are made up a huge range of local constituency representatives. For example, I did a hospital project many moons ago and we had a committee made up of absolutely everybody from the volunteers who make the cups of tea to the nurses to the users, the friends of, etc. We had works by Michael Craig-Martin and others, all selected by these groups. But half of the work has now gone and I have no idea where. You can communicate, involve people, give lectures and do whatever you can but you cannot legislate for the fact that communities evolve, they come and they go.

If something is made of bronze, you can be sure that it is going to be there in another 50 years but everything else is slightly dangerous. I think people have tried enormously in the public art world to get involvement in selection of artists but that is not necessarily the big connection that will ensure longevity. For example, there is a piece in Edinburgh, a neon piece on top of the Bank Hotel which says 'Let's talk about art maybe' which was kept in Edinburgh after Lux Europa and was paid for by the city fathers. I was told that it has effectively gone out and that it is no more, just a dead piece of neon. I have written to The Scotsman, to the City Council and others but have not had any reaction at all. I do not want to make everyone depressed but I do not know what you can do, short of putting people in jail for not looking after art. It is very difficult but it does not make it any less worthwhile in doing it.

Sarah Iremonger, Artist:
I have a question. I do not really know what we are doing here. For example, you take the Ballymun Regeneration Breaking Ground conference, to which artists were invited to go along and look at the development and make proposals for actual projects for community-based, temporary, etc. projects, which were actually directly engaged with the development. My opinion is that even when that happened, what they were planning to do was very ambitious but it seemed to me that it was very late. Everything was well under way; everything was already being designed and artists were being offered specific sites. Is the reason for today, therefore, that there will be an engagement with artists where there will be projects, which are involved, for example, at the design stage, before things are developed or finalised.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
If your question is specifically in relation to this project, Daylighting the City, and this event, we wanted to provide an opportunity in which we could take on board the artists' opinions of the engagement with the sites, the process, the public engagement and other responses. We wanted to take these forward and look at how this is working and look at informing public art policy with the city and contributing to national debate.

I think it is up to artists to raise the issue and to push the sector as well. I think that people who are working in the public art area need to hear more from artists about their issues and concerns. In this instance, there are no planned, specific projects; we are talking more about the future landscape of the city between the next 5 and 40 years. It is a long-term evolving process and what the National Sculpture Factory is trying to do is to make sure that the cultural practitioners in this city and nationally and internationally will have a role in that development. We think it is critical that individual artistic practice is allowed to be part of that, being realised through creativity.

Sarah Iremonger, Artist:
That sounds exactly what we all want but is that going to happen?

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
Things will only happen if enough people want them to happen. The artists themselves need to be part of the debate.

Sarah Iremonger, Artist:
I think that is what I am asking.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
The artists need to talk to the cultural mediators, the media and other bodies. There is a whole range of stakeholders who need to be involved.

I don't want to speak on behalf of the participating artists in Daylighting the City but through this project they have had to engage with us as an institution, with City Hall, with the Fire Brigade, with site owners, road closure authorities, with the general public, etc. The number of people with whom they have had to engage is a microcosm of the kind of larger development that we are all going to have to engage with. But the nature of that engagement has been really positive. I have been really pleasantly surprised and I think we underestimate that broad spectrum of public all the time. For example, I was working with Cindy Cummings on Monday, installing some gold shoes around the city. Those gold shoes were making people smile. They were saying 'this is great, a bit of culture'. People understand what you are trying to achieve; they know it when they see it. We are not, however, trying to create galleries without walls. We are trying to engage people at a more exploration level. We are not saying this is culture; we are asking them to engage and ask what they think. These are issues which the artists, through their work, have tapped into which are of direct relevance and interest to the public.

Fiona Ni Mhaoilir, Artist:
I have been hearing words like 'cultural tourism' and 'longevity' and such like. A temporary project is not like, if you are from somewhere else, you go to a place and just put something up. Considering the site you have been given and the space around you is integral to the piece that you create in a 'temporary' sense. Longevity to me means more permanent whereas the transient nature of a piece is often quite central. There is quote from Baudelaire that the 'form of a city changes faster than the heart of a mortal'. That is just the way things happen. Temporary work has a very valid place all over the world, offering artists the opportunity to come and engage with a city, place, space and site which dictates the nature of the work and the artist's response, rather than simply imposing work on a place. It is more of a challenge for people who make temporary work to go out and engage with site and other people, taking into account how a city changes.

Question from the floor:
I think things can often live longer in the memory than they can in reality.

Alice Maher, Artist
I just wondered whether you think there is an emerging group of artists who are making public art and what this is causing within the artistic community. I know that as curator, you said that you considered artists whom you felt could do this or were doing this already. I am just putting the question out there, I suppose, in relation to private practice or in relation to what practice is and whether there is such an emerging group who create these public art pieces.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
I think maybe there is. I think it is also important to realise that you chose from the whole spectrum of artists and not just from those whom you know are engaging with public art. In this project, we chose artists specifically because we found their work practice to be interesting and felt that that level of conceptual engagement could be transformed into the reality of the project. I think it is critical that as curators we look at artists who may never have worked in the public domain before but that you give people that opportunity to take practice out. This project was, in part, a pilot project to allow artists to scale up work and to deal with those real hard issues of working in the public domain which is a much more uncontrollable environment.

There is potentially, in relation to your wider question, easier for curators to go to certain artists who are always on shortlists, who give credibility to that shortlist. I do not think that any of us do that willingly but that accusation is always being made; that there is a certain type of 'public art artist; in Ireland but I think it is up to projects like this to challenge that view. It is a pilot project and it is an opportunity for experiment; it is lasting one week. Already we have had queries of whether we should leave them up for longer but we will not as its ethos is very much about being temporary. I think that notion of memory is critical as we hope that it will evoke a sense of place, a sense of questioning through the memory of those projects. I hope that people's relationship to particular sites will change. for example, they will smile as they see the site of Tracey McVerry's lampshades in Flock of Fables or when they think of the Bonded Warehouses, they will have memories of Jools' presences and Cindy's shoes on the docks evoke memories.

So I consider it very important to give opportunities to artists who have not knowingly engaged in the public domain before.

Adrian O'Connell, Artist:
You were asking about 'public art' but I never myself approached it as 'public art'. I have worked more in gallery spaces or in site-specific or location-based work but this being a temporary project gave me the challenge and opportunity to look again at how I want to work in the public domain, rather than thinking consciously about creating 'public art'

Cindy Cummings, Artist:
Two things have struck me this morning. Firstly in relation to the question of what artists would like to see in the docklands. I would love a versatile space to work in. A space, which could be a performance space, a workshop space, something that we could easily change for whatever artist or project you were working with. It would be really nice to have that space available to do that, to experiment. It would also be great if the businesses and organisations who actually own these sites could get directly involved with artists themselves so that it is not just places like the National Sculpture Factory that are offering opportunities to do projects like this. There are a lot of people in the city who go to shows, go to galleries and know about art. Why do they not provide opportunities for artists to come in and work on these sites as well because I know that there are a considerable number of people who would love to have the chance to do what we have been able to do in the last week?

Liz Meaney, Cork City Council Arts Officer:
I think that what the artists have achieved through this is to give us a challenge and there is a challenge facing funders to create opportunities for artists to engage in different ways. I think this refers to what Sarah Iremonger was talking about. Because of the nature of the funding which we have to fund projects through 'per cent for art', it comes to us at different times in its development. Obviously we would hope to engage with artists at very early stages of design so that their ideas and involvement is absolutely integral to the overall design of a site or building. The other thing we have to address relates to what Cindy spoke about which is looking at encouraging private developers to put art into their developments. But these are challenges facing the authorities for which we need the support of artists. When you engage in this debate in a very public manner, it pushes forward that agenda. We have already seen what can be achieved through this project and the artists' work and responses. The public engaging with the docklands space in a new way and in a way which they had not before actually happened through this project or specific works. People who may not have engaged with the docklands debate previously or who may not have come into Millennium Hall to see the plans, they have now become engaged through art. That is the power of art and the power of what you do. By you as artists pushing forward that agenda, you can increase the opportunities we can make available to you. It is something to which Cork City Council is committed and I am delighted that organisations such as the National Sculpture Factory approach us to help us work with artists in this way.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
That is in some respects the theme I wanted to pick up on. Are there any architects in the audience?

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
The Cork City Architect is present.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
Just the person. Architecture has not really been discussed yet this morning. The question of why we are here and whether it is too late or too early came up. I am little bit confused because we are talking about ephemeral work and how good and involving that is but there is also a glimmer that artists can be involved in the actual design, the actual structure and the planning and so on. It seems to me that now is the time for that. I do not know whether in Ireland, you have anything similar to the Architecture Centres, which were established in the UK; I speak as a member of the Architecture Advisory Committee of the Arts Council of England. It seems to me that a dialogue between architects and artists is absolutely vital. Not that artists are going to interfere and slow up the development process which architects are often quite worried about. Surely one would be looking for exemplary architecture and it is a fantastic opportunity. The way that the arts community can get involved would be by enfranchising them to the development. I am wondering what is happening about the architecture and whether there is or could be a master plan whereby the artists could be involved right at the beginning. I am probably, however, speaking out of turn.

Oliver Dowling, Visual Arts Officer the Arts Council:
The question that I was going to ask was specifically about architects. Perhaps architects need to be trained or retrained to work with artists.

Again, we were talking about Temple Bar earlier. There are some good things and some bad things have happened in Temple Bar. One of the things that happened early on was commissioned art works for most of the new cultural buildings. There was a competition and artists were invited to make submissions and I know that a number of the artists were quite upset because the architects were looking more for decorations for their buildings. It was all a bit too late, as the buildings had already been designed. I think there does need to be a wider debate and discussion on the best ways to get artists involved at an earlier stage and how do you get architects to accept them. I think there is a difficulty there.

Sarah Iremonger, Artist:
I was also referring not just to specific or concrete projects but also looking at getting involved more at a research or ideas level, such as interaction with the community. Not just creating a physical thing, which ends up in a building.

Neil Hegarty, City Architect, Cork City Council:
I started working with artists in the mid to late 1980's. I was really shocked, as there was funding available at the time and I felt it was my job to take this national funding and bring it into the city. So we started working with artists then. I suppose we did not really care then what we got from the artists other than the dialogue we were able to organise with the people living in the houses. It is very hard to get people to talk about where they are going to live. I often think that you can give a north facing living room without any difficulty and people will be popping pills for the rest of their lives and not know why. Whereas, if you begin to introduce a piece of art into an area, for some reason they begin to get interested in that; they meet one another, often for the first time, and begin talking.

The other thing that has kept us looking at sculpture, particularly that already in existence, is that we created an art trail around them. I was just thinking about your light piece for Lux Europa; perhaps if it had been in an art trail, one is almost frightened into keeping the piece up.

With reference to the Docklands Development. It was originally planned in 1780 and so what is happening there now is an evolution of what has been going on in the city since then. The earlier part of the city was put together in the 800's. The area was deteriorating greatly and one of the things, which we put into that part of the city, was an architecture centre, the Cork Vision Centre, to try and help with the development of the city. We have a 1:500 scale model, 20m long, of the city centre there which has every building in the city marked on it and I think that that model was hugely influential in realising the potential of the land which we are now looking at in the docklands development.

I think that there is so much going on when you are trying to get a building off the ground in terms of funding and all the other pressures. I you think about all the people Mary referred to just to put a piece of temporary art on the corner of a site, when you are building something which you hope will last 500 years or more, all these are increased dramatically. The City Manager mentioned yesterday that the School of Music might have some difficulty and that highlights that the delivery of a building is often very chancy and I think that architects have fears attached to this.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
Very similar to delivery of art works, I suppose.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management
Well, yes, this is major problem even when there is good will. I am involved in a major project for the BBC in London's White City, which is a seven-year programme, which is perhaps almost on the scale of the docklands development with plans to create seven large buildings, which will effectively become a media village. There are masses of goodwill from the BBC and the budget to integrate good art, both ephemeral and permanent. We have, for example, Tim Head working with Alisa Morrison, and they are actually affecting the colours of the building, etc. But we are having a problem because the architects have not billed for the extra time it takes to talk to the artists so getting them to spare the time is pretty difficult as they are trying to build the building. This is always the way. It is all very well us making a fuss but there is no real structure. Maybe by the time there is a structure, it will all become rather boring but it is a big issue. I completely sympathise with the architects.

Neil Hegarty, City Architect, Cork City Council:
One way we have got round that is to build the artist into the contract as a subcontractor, just like a plumber or such like. That then covered all those issues like insurance, etc, but sometimes we still have problems. In one scheme, when the scaffolding was all up and ready to go, the artist was in Australia so was not available to actually do the project.

Sarah Finlay, Freelance Arts Consultant:
As architects have begun to work with artists at an earlier stage, surely that process will also begin to happen in an organic way. They will identify the need to find time to research and develop projects with artists. I think it is also the job of project managers or curators to identify that as an issue and to fight for it.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
The other issue is main contractors. Everybody is absolutely terrified of main contractors, especially of design and build. And often this idea of having a contract for an artist as a subcontractor can be pretty terrifying because of the insurances and related issues. Although it is still great to be evangelistic but it is a minefield.

Sarah Finlay, Freelance Arts Consultant:
Yes! But if you think of ten years ago in this country, very few people were involving artists in the early stages but now that is beginning to happen. I do think there is an organic development, which takes place.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
Yes there certainly is. It is much better than it used to. For example, with Norman Foster and Associates, the old partners almost hate art and will not have anything to do with it. All the young partners, however, are incredibly involved with it and enthusiastic.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
Just in relation to this project and Cork's Docklands Development, because it is very early we do have real opportunities and are already talking to those concerned. We are, for example, arguing for a similar scheme to the RSA's Art for Architecture Awards potentially to be set up in Ireland, which buys funded time for artists to be involved at an early stage. Now the evaluation of those projects and how they work is mixed, in terms of how the artists can really engage with architects through those projects. But I think there is a real willingness here in Cork, both through the Docklands Development Office and Cork City Council, to actually engage artists at an early stage because we are still at that very early stage.

David O'Brien, Artist:
I just wanted to reiterate what has been said about how artists can get involved. With the architects coming in and designing buildings for the new developments, schemes such as the 'per cent for art' schemes do not necessarily do anybody any favours. The idea of getting artists involved in the dialogue or discussion is important. It does not necessarily have to be pure art works; it can be social, creative, responsive, looking at functional spaces and different uses in an imaginative way. They can all help, through the artist's input, to create a community not sure through a purely fine art mechanism or through aesthetics.

Peter Murray, Curator Crawford Municipal Art Gallery:
I just wanted to remind people, if you like, of a success in Cork which was the integration of Corban Walker's 'per cent for art' work into the Crawford Art Gallery's new wing. It is an example of an extremely good architect working with an extremely good artist who worked together at an early stage. Part of the success was due to the architect being involved in the selection of the artist as part of the overall design process and contractors were also absolutely integrated into that as the design was integrated into the actual building.

Michael Craig-Martin has recently, I understand, designed the entire façade of the Herzog & de Meuron Laban Centre. Seeing images of it, it looks like a really amazing combination of architecture and art and, if you have any further information about it, it would be great to hear.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
It is one of my projects although it was slightly cheating. Michael Craig-Martin is also a Trustee of the Tate and obviously got to know Herzog & de Meuron and they liked each other's work and I orchestrated the marriage, so to speak. But it is one that functions terribly well because his ideas of colour are wonderful - which is often what architects look for, interestingly enough. This was particularly important for Herzog & de Meuron, with Tate Modern, for example, being a symphony of grey. So they valued very much Michael's input into transforming this translucent building through various colours and various ways, without overdoing it. His touch was actually quite magical.

Peter Murray, Curator Crawford Municipal Art Gallery:
Absolutely and, as Michael Craig-Martin was born in Dublin, perhaps that could be a model to be followed in Ireland.

Mick Wilson, Artist, Writer & Lecturer:
I am anxious that discussion about temporary interventions in the public domain has moved into a discussion into the relationship between artists and architects and I am concerned at the lack of specificity and lack of detail when people talk about the engagement with the public. It is rather amorphous and rather anecdotal. Are we without an actual model and do we really have any clarity about what it is we are expecting of that engagement and encounter between the public and the artwork or artists. Do we have to really rely on the anecdotal?

Elinor Rivers, Artist:
I wanted to get back to this issue of participation. What I think artists are really up against is a lack of participatory structures in our culture. It is not just to do with artists and architects or artists and the public; it is to do with the people, in this case the people of Cork City, needing to have some way of having an input. What I am wondering is how artists can make a contribution through creative ways to encouraging participation on that level. I am perhaps thinking of Augustus Bois's model in Brazil. I am not sure whether people here are familiar with his work. He is a dramatist and has developed a form of revolutionary, participatory theatre, whereby people get to help to create new forms of decision-making and, in its very latest form, get to change legislation and become part of the political process.

Also, Sarah Iremonger brought up Ballymun and I was talking to a community worker in Ballymun a few weeks ago. There is just an appalling legacy of bad feeling there because of the partnership situation and the way that the people of Ballymun feel they have been treated, including by the artists' community, the power structures and the developers. So I would like to look at creative ways in which artists can contribute to encouraging participatory decision-making on a larger scale.

Caoimhin Corrigan, Carlow County Council Arts Officer:
Just in response to Mick Wilson's question in relation to the public and specificity, I think there are different types of public and that is where the specificity lies. Artists will engage with different types of public. Sometimes that might be geographical; it might be sectoral, based on age or different parts of the community. But to suggest that there is only one public is possibly to look for something which is too bland. Yes, there can be 'in your face' public art. But word 'public art' in itself, even within a temporary context, can have many different aspects; it can be 'in your face' or it can be something more subtle that people happen across and wonder if it is art or what it is doing there, which is often equally powerful as they keep on coming back to the question of what was that thing I stumbled across. It can also be public art to which people are invited. It is free and it is in a shop window or in a café or it is an installation piece. But again it is for different types of public and that is where the specificity lies.

Mary Brady, Director, ICD (Institute for Choreography and Dance):
In response to your question about models and the references to participatory structures. I am the Director of ICD up in the Firkin Crane in Shandon which is the other part of the city which is trying to revitalise itself in some way. For those of you who do not know it, it is one of the oldest parts of the city and you can make it out by the heraldic tower of St Anne's and the Shandon 'Goldie fish' which is one of the city's landmarks. One of the panellists spoke about artists being part of a constituency and I think that the whole idea of a model is to make sure that art is a part - but only a part - of that constituency. In order for development and regeneration to take place, one needs to be in dialogue with representatives of the wider community. The project that ICD is piloting up in Shandon is called 'Safe Harbour'.

We started as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival last year and it is a five-year 'pilot'. I would just like to describe it briefly to you. It was a model brought over to us by an American choreographer, Martha Bowers, who was involved with the regeneration of a place in Brooklyn called Red Hook, which is still in the process where the community is involved in seeing how they could develop wasteland there, and has some kind of cultural access. She came over to almost 'transplant' the 'safe harbour' as a site-specific work in Shandon. Not being from Cork myself, I did not realise at the time that 'safe harbour' is actually the motto for Cork.

We did a 'site-specific' work last year as part of the Festival but in the run-up to that, we had quite fiery and wonderful discussions with local representatives from the community. We started discussing exactly what a 'safe harbour' means for the artist and issues about cultural identity. We also discovered that if we needed to look at this project in more depth and to look at how we at the Firkin Crane, the biggest building in the area, can have an impact in Shandon and the community, rather than being something like a UFO, it was going to have to be a much longer process. So for me a model has to look at timescale and one of the positive things, which I never fully realised about Shandon, is that it is a very old community and things happen very slowly there. I used to see that as one of its greatest faults but perhaps it is not; it is actually perhaps one of its greatest assets in that we can take time and there are structures there and in order to involve all members of the community we have to have that dialogue happening.

So what we are doing, which is perhaps similar to Daylighting the City, is that we are inviting artists to present proposals as to what they feel a 'safe harbour' is but within an urban context. That is just an outline of a model we are adding to the city.

Julie McGowan, Artist:
I just wanted to say a couple of things which might be slightly provocative but walking around the area last night and seeing some of the pieces and when there are sited in the city, I had quite a stark realisation that the aesthetic and look of this city will change quite dramatically as a result of this development. Going back to first principles, that is what we are here about. How the people and citizens of this city, as well as the visitors, will influence and how they can influence that change. It is interesting that the example of Derry was given where it is evident that that lack of dialogue has impacted so badly on the aesthetic of the city. I think one of the differences with Temple Bar is that it has not changed the cityscape of Dublin. For pedestrians, the aesthetic has changed and it has had an impact on the cultural life but it has not changed the urban landscape. It is not an area, which is immediately visually apparent to a visitor; you have to be in it. I think there is something quite different going on with that case which is also perhaps similar to the Ballymun development too.

I also wanted to say that for me 'public art' is essentially political; it is a political process, whether it is with a capital 'P' or a lower case 'p'. I think that is something about the education of artists and audiences that once you take on a piece of public art, you have engaged in the political process. That is my opinion.

Marian Flanagan, Freelance Consultant
One concern that I would have about the tone of the discussion. I see the National Sculpture Factory as attempting in many ways to act as a catalyst for discussion, as an initiator and ignitor of debate and stimulating an intellectual discussion about issues of development. I am slightly concerned that the National Sculpture Factory might end up being perceived as a kind of visual curator for the entire development. But it is not the one solely responsible. There has been quite a lot of discussion as to how we can make artists involved in this process, how can we provide funds which encourage good art projects at certain stages, or whatever. It is absolutely imperative that artists, citizens and individuals members of the public begin to politicise themselves and get into a discussion with the City Architect; make a meeting with him and say, 'this is what I want. I live in this town and this is what I would like to see'. The artists and the individuals have the potential to be powerhouses themselves and I think there is a terrible tendency in Ireland in the art world to be too dependent on the art centres, on the Arts Council, the National Sculpture Factory or whoever the mediator is. I think that needs to change before anything really truly radical can happen.

Mike Fitzpatrick, Limerick City Gallery of Art:
Just from my perspective, working with the EVA exhibition, I would see that what the National Sculpture Factory is doing with this initiative is highly politicised, taking this kind of developmental role. One of the artistic projects as part of EVA last week was a 15 second gunpowder thing on the river. That work and the process to realise it certainly relates to risk. We actually never thought about it in relation to art. That was never in question. I suppose we are all essentially political animals in relation to the commissioning of the works but once we had committed ourselves to the project, the only decision we had to make or consider was whether it was technically possible. We were unsure and we are still unsure. We are 90% sure that it happened. There was a level of engagement in that respect and essentially, I suppose, the whole discussion of public art is different from that.

EVA is essentially coming from the artists; this has come up so we will try to make it happen. The curatorial position becomes a situation where these is the exhibition and let's see can we make this possible. So there are effectively two structures. One is where you set up the premise where the things will happen but the other is whereby certain manifestations might exist.

In relation to EVA and that particular project, an awful lot of people came and you wondered what they thought of it, as it was so brief; it was probably a long wait and then something so brief. The enjoyment of working on the project was the sense of engagement with bodies such as the police, the fire brigade and the myriad of authorities in very subtle and low key ways of trying to make it happen. The discussion of whether it was art never came up. The only thing people might ask is why are you going to such levels of engagement for such a brief moment. In relation to art in the city, it is very complex.

I look to Limerick and our own slow development and Temple Bar (- the only thing wrong with Temple Bar is that it is too hot in one spot). Our movement culturally and our growth in terms of engaging with 'per cent for art' or, for example, what is happening in Ballymun right now, is a complex learning process. But I think we need to separate the notion of how art works from the whole kind of set of motivations of why people make the stuff and how incredibly precious the process is and sometimes it cannot be politicised in that way or cannot be used culturally.

What I hear around me is that people from this city are asking for more empowerment for artists. I think you simply do it. I think that what the National Sculpture Factory is very strategic but it does not stop other people from doing other things.

Matthew Lennon, Horsehead International:
I have done several projects on sites and usually in longer terms than just a week. For example, one project was over three years, moving artists in and out over long-term projects. One of the things we are trying to do here is to show artists and audiences that there are these opportunities to do these things. As somebody has already said, there is a real dependency here in Ireland with artists always asking when is the Arts Council going to do it or when is National Sculpture Factory going to do it. My question is when are the artists going to do it? I started Horsehead International because I was in a city, which did not do outdoor interventions; I did it because nobody else was doing it. That is the approach you have to take. If you are going to be an exciting cultural capital, you have got to make the projects yourself and give the models to the city, give the models to the Arts Council, go to people like Mary McCarthy and give them the models to be the advocates for. That is how you create an exciting environment. If you wait for it to come to you, it is not going to happen.

Grant Collie, design consultant & technical advisor:
We run a design consultancy and technical advisory service here in Cork. We got involved with Julie McGowan's project at a very late stage to help with her work. There are other members of design teams and building teams who, like ourselves, would love to get involved in these kinds of projects and types of work. It is a bit like artists saying that they get involved with projects far too late; we would love to get involved with artists on their projects at a much earlier stage. If, for example with Julie's project, we had been able to get involved earlier, things could have developed or happened in a different way. It is not necessarily a financial thing but people from our fields, and those with whom we are working on other projects, also have to be brought in at an earlier stage to be able to give our lighting or media design expertise. It is not just about architects; there are other people on these teams too.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
In these instances, I think that the artist has to decide when they need help and it is for the artist to make that decision. In relation to this project and the broader issues being discussed, some artists will always need the facilitation of organisations to make opportunities happen for them. It is not always easy for artists to go out and do things on the streets; you may even get arrested or you might not get permission. I think we need more pressure from you as artists in terms of taking control of spaces and places. I think that through events such as Art Trail in this city and Intermedia, Cork has a legacy of artists, whether through organisations or through artist-led initiatives, who have organised themselves in taking control of the city. But I also think that it is up to artists to decide when they need that additional help. If they feel that, technically, they can take their project quite far on their own, that is their creative decision but it is very encouraging to know that there is that platform of people in Ireland, Cork or wherever, that they can pull assistance from.

Tom McCarthy, European Capital of Culture Office, Cork City Council:
For 16 years, I have been living on the ridge of Montenotte, looking at the docklands every morning and evening. I feel a great affection for its desolation, which is perhaps grossly irresponsible, I know.

But now I understand its 1780's 1800's beginnings and the building of earth out of the slob lands of that space indeed I've seen the compulsory purchase order and the plans of 1917 when the British Government actually took the racecourse from the city in order to build a huge Massey Ferguson plant there for Europe so that's the kind of various beginnings that space has had. I think artists are such individual republics that they really do need to be empowered by almost intervening experts so that their voices may be heard by other people who are in a way more well funded and have professional expertise in terms of public relations so no matter how deeply a poet or artist feels about that space, the artist or poet won't have the kind of institutional power to effect change and thinking without help from somebody who is either a good organiser indeed like Mary McCarthy or Mary Brady in terms of the safe harbour project. To me looking at that space for the last sixteen years and absolutely loving it, I love it for the flight of the birds through it for three summer I watched a pair of sparrow hawks hunting between the Marina power station and the R&H Hall building and it was wonderful to watch them they way they used that space and the way they used to fly in and out of the long red sunlight of the evening was absolutely incredible and immediately it strikes me that one of the things I would love as a person just loves the site is a number of different elevations so that that evening bog light which flies through that space can actually be appreciated by people who will live there.

Now the interesting thing about that space is that it is very much a day time space, looking at it for sixteen years it's a working space it becomes very furtive with very odd traffic lights at night by coming to a halt at the water but it is essentially a working space. So what is the difference between a place in the city, which will be changed from a working space to a living space? Safe harbour area if you like the Institute for Contemporary Dance place, the Shandon area is a densely peopled place, it is a place of steps, its ironic an interesting that a centre for dance is there because it is a landscape of steps, concrete steps and stone steps whereas the Docklands is really a place of light and flight and tides.

Harry Moore, Artist:
Having seen the art community of Cork develop over the last ten years and for a few years beforehand artists are actually achieving a much higher profile, the fact that we are sitting here today is because artists have been active they have been through Intermedia, Art Trail and through the works of the National Sculpture Factory and the arts centres, though those facilities have helped artists make a big profile and its by doing this interventionalist work in the streets and temporary work is probably much more exciting than long term work in that sense because the memory is richer than the object often. That the public is going to become more aware of the artists, the other organisation, the architects and the developers also becoming much more aware of the artists, so its an organic process and I think its happening very well but it does require the energy of the people to carry on pushing events like this one, like Intermedia, like Art Trail and festival events which help raise the profile of artists.

Danny McCarthy, Artist:
The area is changing since the seventeenth century, I worked in the area up to ten years ago and coming back here to get engaged in the Lapp's Quay area of that has radically changed. Standing there yesterday with Una at her piece, the audience passing by was very few, whereas, up to five or six years ago, I think Mr. Hegarty (city architect) will agree with me there was a lot more people working and active in the area. You had the Eircom building with over 200 people, you had Connolly Hall much more active, you had a vibrant community. The pubs have all changed, there was a small pub that people used to go to drink, old fashioned pubs up to ten years ago. Now you have huge conglomerates like Flaherty's, the Parnell and that was a small pub. Already the change has taken place, very much so in the area in that we are coming in at a later stage. It's almost like for me returning to a morgue that the area is so dead in comparison to the area that I knew and worked in.

Peter Murray, Curator, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery:
If its possible at this early stage if one is thinking of art for this area that might one of the criteria be that it engages with people who are walking rather than people who are driving because I think utopian ideals in terms of new city developments very often become distopian, rather bleak, rather unfriendly I think there is a potential with a heavily commercially driven development plan based upon this 18th century grid in a contemporary sense becoming a place that is not very pleasant so I would like to advocate strongly that when artists are asked to work with the development plan that as an architect it is in always enhancing somebody who is walking or somebody who is cycling. One of the most fantastic assets of the Docklands site is the fact that it links the old Blackrock railway which is not open at the moment to cycle on but it runs for about three miles all the way out along the harbour through suburban Cork if its made into a very good safe cycle and pedestrian way it presents a genuine opportunity for a kind of development that has the utopian ideal in terms of the way cities are going but if its neglected, if it turns out to be a cycle way or pedestrian way that isn't looked and regarded by artists and everybody as a high value amenity asset there is a danger it will become a not go zone. So can I appeal in the most general sense that somebody on their two feet walking should be the person to whom the artwork is directed in every sense of this new development.

Clare Bywater, Arts Administrator:
I'll just say what I would like to see apart from a new concert hall with incredible acoustics, a performance art space, a multi purpose space especially designed for Cindy, a new gallery, a place for bands to practice and all the buildings we desperately need in the city. What I would like to see if people living there and this seems to follow what's going on in the thread of the most recent comments. I would like to see people living there so that it remains alive and not just a daytime space, this happened in London prices went up everybody moved out and the centre of London became very dead. I would like to see some of those people being artists living or working there.

I learned a new phrase yesterday during the conference which was "managed spaces" and I would like to ask Neil if there is any chance managed spaces means subsidised spaces or spaces where businesses are encouraged to run the ground floor but own the building and maybe in their own way sponsor or subsidise spaces so that the artists can stay there? Whether that might be a possibility? And just before he answers I would like to say if artists are living there and working there they will be a create vibrancy in this area which will take off into the next decade of its own way in its own accord and will have a new life which will go well beyond this conference. I don't know if this is an appropriate time Neil for you to be able to answer this but I'm very curious.

Neil Hegarty, City Architect, Cork City Council:
I suppose I can answer another question or say something that is very important myself and that is we had this plan done for us by consultants in the 70's and it brought all these wonderful roads to us and by-passes of the city and everything like that and the result of it seems to be that the population of the city is dropping dramatically whereas employment in the city has risen by 40% in the last ten years the population has dropped by about 30%, something as much as that. That to me is the big issue really for the next twenty or so years because if there aren't people living in the city that's why Peter might find it boring and dull. These lovely towns like Midleton, Youghal, Carrigaline and Bandon and all these other towns back into live in the city I'm not sure, maybe if artists could help like that and maybe artists would look at planning issues like that how they can help with those bigger issues rather than issues of how just putting pieces in place with regard to the other idea I think that always the best hope for artists is to have dereliction in the city it's not to have the city moving quickly or hoping to move because then there are buildings available. It depends on what kind of city we want, Charlie Haughey pressed the button in Dublin with Temple Bar and the Financial Services Centre and really the city hasn't stopped since and maybe we would be better off if nobody pressed the button in Cork and we just kept on going quietly and slowly that's probably heresy for me to say that but it might be better like that. I haven't answered your question but…

John Flynn, Sen. Engineer, Docklands Office:
To put that in perspective the population of Cork in terms of the latest census is likely to come out at around 120,000 or somewhat below that, the demographics of that is that its going to show its an ageing population. Young people are moving out to the suburbs, they are not choosing to live in the city. The background to the strategy and what the strategy says is terms of its larger context is your looking at about a population of 9,000 people being put back into the Docklands of which there is about 420 acres, your looking at a potential of about 6 million square feet of non residential uses there, of offices some of the light industrial uses that exist there, University campus, research facilities and things, that's just the background to the thing in terms of the big picture.

There were a number of issues raised here today and I would encourage anybody raising those issues to read the strategy, first of all please read the strategy that's the first thing I'd say its available at the moment on the Cork city web site under docklands. There are no copies available there's been a huge demand on them its being reprinted with some of the changes that had to be done to it in the light of the consultation process and that reprint probably won't be available realistically looking at going to Council June/ July probably until the end of July, but it is available on the web. It does look at things like art, how art is dealt with, there is a fairly comprehensive chapter there on urban design and incorporating art into urban design. In terms of walkways turning the city back towards the river, having walkways, having lively active spaces and having art in all those walkways is dealt with within the strategy obviously at a high level but it is worth looking at what the concepts were and how they can be developed. The last thing is I'm quite apprehensive, listening to all the talk on Temple Bar, I'm very sorry the word ever came into the whole thing about Docklands because that's not what the Cork Docklands is about. There is a need to have some restaurant there, not in the concentrated type of thing you see, you do need to have some life if you have office space, there is need to have some ground uses that will bring life at night that way the place isn't dead at night and I think that's one of the things that came comprehensively out of one of the first developments that was done in the Docklands in Dublin when it was all offices, when it was all the financial centre and where by night is quite dead by night, just to say that and to put some bit of perspective on the Docklands strategy before what people say what they would like to see on it, please have a look at what's in it and then see where those concepts can be further developed.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
I want to redirect the conversation back now to a bit more national issue of the role of art and I'm wondering how artist are feeling about the roles that we are expecting of them to do through creating arts projects. We are expecting a maverick role, a largely unsupported role a political role and I'd like to ask artists in relation to temporary projects how best can we as curators, public art commissioners, local authorities mediate your work? Are you happy for public art works or interventions to be found with a level of ambiguity? Or is it best to have them signed? I'd like to get the participating artists who were involved in this project response to that. What are your thoughts on that mediation of public art work, what is the media's role? What are the curator's role and the artist role and responsibility into putting work into the public domain?

Jools Gilson-Ellis, Artist:
One of the issues for me in a project I was doing and I can see it in some of the other projects around the city as part of the same project is it's a wonder full thing to be just walking a long a street and just come upon something and the surprise of that and the incongruity in seeing lampshades or whatever, but for me in my project because it's a bonded warehouse the gates are locked at six o'clock - I absolutely wanted people to come upon it but it would never work like that because people actually feel a bit intimidated by this space because it's an old warehouse, it's a bit of a dodgy area and the complicate nature of that and for me its about trying to balance people being able to get there and find it and still leaving ambiguity and still leaving some trickiness about trying to find the work.

Liz Meaney, Cork City Council Arts Officer:
This links to what you were saying Mary but it also links back to the wider question. I think one of the big issues artists can address when Cork is European City of Culture in 2005 is what it means to be a Capital of Culture, a City of Culture, what it means to be in the city. How can we attract people back into the city? Do artists have a role in commenting on that and bringing that awareness? And how do the artists that were involved in a project like this feel about that sort of responsibility being placed upon them to comment in that way upon the development of a city because that is one of the most fascinating debates that can happen around European Capital of Culture. What is the city? What is the nature of the city? What is the nature of artist's role within a city?

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
I did some research at one point for Kassel where the Documenta is held and I dare say some people here have been to see it, on behalf of Edinburgh. Now Kassel as you know was on the dividing line between the two Germany's and each defined its self an identity. I don't have the exact statistics but it became one of the moist important art shows anywhere in the world but its objective was very singular for Castle to have a new identity and just for anybody who has any responsibility for funding any of these things I obviously discovered for the last but one the funding for that Documenta was 7million but the visitors spend was 90 million so the return on investment in terms of culture tourism was enormous - Just as an encouragement!

Sarah Iremonger, Artist:
I haven't made it to Castle yet, but I did get to go to Manifesta and just in response to what Mary said about artists mediating between curators, institutions and media. One thing I noticed in Manifesta that those divisions were merged, artists were involved with the media in terms of the posters and there were media projects going on, artists were the curators, there was no division, artists were there institutions, artists were the media there wasn't this separation that was suggested here, its much more merged any that's what I want to say. I'm giving a talk on it on Monday anyway.

Cindy Cummings, Artist:
I have to agree with you totally I don't think it something that seems to me can be formulated in such a strict way, for myself anyway it depended on the idea of the project so because I chose to do a performance, in order to have an audience or to let people know I have to publicise, I had to put the word out. The other part was putting the shoes up on the hoardings that wasn't announced and it was really fun to see the reaction of people, whole bus loads of people coming by and just the faces, I really wished I had a video camera that day it was so extraordinary and everyone really enjoying what was going on, not having a clue what it was about, but really just enjoying that moment so I think these roles have to be fluid they have to be negotiated between all of the parties concerned, I don't think there's any particular format.

Danny McCarthy, Artist:
I'd just like to say to Mary the question she asked about putting signage on pieces, I'll answer her at the end of the week because she doesn't know it yet but I have two pieces in the show one is signed and the other isn't and I'll be letting her know what the response is to the unsigned piece is - If any one finds it.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
We love surprises!

Diarmuid Crowley, Pubic Art Advisor, Cork City Council:
I'd just like to make a quick point in relation to what Cindy said and came back to what Mike was referring to earlier, do we have any specificity in the area we are talking about and I think really we don't because there's hardly any consensus in what art is never mind public art is and I think as regards to trying to create models that are too prescriptive that way because your replacing one kind of generally maybe conservative kind of commissioning policies in a country or in a city what ever your replacing, your replacing one orthodoxy way with another and I don't think that's a healthy thing. So as Cindy was saying it's a more fruitful adventure for all of us if we keep it wide open instead of tying it down. I know from an administrative point of view and from a securing funding point of view there's obviously an administrative or specific necessity in there in any kind of public art project.

As with regards to trying to create a recipe for a successful project its just not possible, its something that should be steered clear of at all costs I think.

Fiona Ni Mhaoilir, Artist:
I sort of disagree with that, at this point I think we should be specific. People say what, why, who, when, where constitutes public art? You have one percent schemes, you have these monumental sculpture pieces, and you have sound works and then your talking about labelling them. Then you have people like Charles Sidmonds who went out and worked in quite a public way but in a very private and people came upon the work as well, I'm sort of anxious from the point of view that I do make site specific work and it is specific because I'm placed in a certain site and its important to me. Sorry I don't know your name, but you were talking about sparrow hawks down along the docks and all like that, theses are things you take into consideration, not only the people who occupy the space but the animals and the other little urban dwellers that are occupying the space as well. I think you do have to be specific because you know as artists you have to choose what you want to put out and whether you want you choose people to come upon that or have it be in your face public art as in political, everything and anything is political, there's a horrible vagueness that everything and anything is acceptable, well it's not really, I think we do have to be specific about the site.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
In relation to this project artists choose their own sites and responded in the nature of their own work to the sites.

Diarmuid Crowley, Public Art Advisor, Cork City Council:
My point is that there's not such a thing as a successful model in public art as your dealing with artistic practice, your dealing with a fundamentally subjective often highly charged activity and you bring that into the public sphere and mix that in with some commissioning bodies, it's a mine field.

Isabel Vasseur, Art Project Management:
Isn't it either specifically good or specifically bad I mean in the end its just about the art, I see your point about being political I mean it is extremely political being out there. You want a specific example don't you? I'm just thinking about Joachim Gertz who worked at night with his students digging up the granite steps in front of the town hall and replacing them temporarily, you probably heard this story and how they inscribed the names of all the synagogues which were destroyed and the crystal night and gradually this pathway became invisibly a memorial, I don't' know whether that's temporary is it process? God knows what it is, but it's the most powerful piece of public art - This ghastly phrase.

Mike Fitzpatrick, Limerick City Gallery:
You mentioned Kassel and just to mention Cork being the Culture Capital, of course Limerick knows it is! There is a sense when you speak about public art there is the notion that vast numbers of people and Kassel is a great example of this rather ugly town that somehow managed to become every five years this momentary centre, this kind of floating centre. It's just that in terms of what Liz was talking about in terms of what the city is about? How culture functions? How you bring people? How you make the heart beat? Its an interesting proposal like for instance if you take the Tate Modern, this phenomenal success, I was thinking of Kassel I was there last week and there was something like 700,000 people visited the last show, that certainly makes the town burgers sit up and take notice, this is really important. Tate Modern works in terms of numbers so more and more art becomes a stand in for a kind of public fixation or the notion of spectacle. I suppose there's different issues how cities can merge with art projects and how art projects can singularly retain their ability to do art projects that are slightly uneasy just slightly below the subterranean and sometimes it actually works hand in hand once the dividing lines are up between the possibility to interact and some notion within corporate level with the level of governments there's a notion there's a possibility that I suppose the poetry my colleague was talking about that there is some where between what he was talking about and the problems the architect here is facing in terms of the movement of population. I think in terms of our overall sense of governance within Ireland many of the issues for the first time in the last decade they have been in our hands to actually make decisions about and similarly our own internal artistic governance is relatively new and we have yet to actualise our own intentionality as cultural practitioners.

Isabel Vassuer, Art Project Management:
Can I just make a plea on behalf of the poets and the artists to the architects! Is it not possible that the poets and the artists be part of the decision process in selecting the architects perhaps rather than always the other way around?

Jenny Haughton, Art Working:
I just want to go back to the role of artists, myself haven't engaged in public art per say but I have worked in various community contexts and when I consider this question of public art I believe the third element really is the public. Therefore, it's a very important question that we as artists have to consider, how do we measure the public response? There have been descriptions here this morning of people coming to talk to artists with incredible enthusiasm, very positive responses. In relation to the artists behind me, work that has underlined a sense of place for people who have worked for many years on the docklands. These are all very important stories but I think we have to move beyond the anecdotal, we have to find a way to incrementally articulate the effects of work that is going to happen over the life time of the development of the docklands here in Cork. I don't know how these things can happen but I do think artists have a responsibility when we consider work in the public domain, how do we also measure the response to that work? How do we advocate for bodies/ various agencies that have supported that work for a general understanding for avenues of communication for a way that we can contextualise these responses in the broader picture, because I believe as artists if you wish to be engaged in effecting change in being involved in decision making, being involved in the social and political context of changing the city then we must also be involved in how our work effects the people who encounter it. We must be able to do that in order to facilitate a wider debate about the city. I'm not sure how we do this but I think it's very important to place at the heart of artist's response to changing the city in the context particularly the docklands.

Just myself I was involved in a project many years ago in Dublin in relation to the Irish Financial Services Centre and the impact of that development on the community and whilst in the docklands its very quiet at night in terms of office space there's a thriving community right at the back of the Irish Financial Services Centre which really over the years has become more marginalized, instead of perhaps emerging out from behind these large structures. I think artists have a crucial role to play in facilitating experiences and articulation and effecting change but we must be able to meet our responsibilities when we work in this way.

Mick Wilson, Artist, Writer & Lecturer:
I'm being prompted here to ask of the artists involved in the current project, would they judge their works to have been successful? Always a tricky question to ask an artist! Would anyone be brave enough to venture forth on that?

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
Or at least to think were there serious compromises made in realising your project in the public domain?

Adrian O'Connell, Artist:
First of all I would like to remind everyone that the artist is also a member of the public and of the community as well. We keep saying public - artist in that community we're part of. If not in this particular community in Cork definitely in our own communities. It's just like sometimes we're saying that the public and artist are two different things, we're not that far apart we're actually very much the same.

Whether I think my work has been successful, I think it's a bit early to say. I gave it the best I could in the time limit I had in relation to the work and I thought I'd go for the heart of it by actually going to the politicians who you as individuals as people voted for to represent your communities. So by putting them under a lie detector machine as such to see if they were telling the truth on your behalf, that's what the concept was. So yes I think it was successful in one way, but its public art when people think of public art they think of something more permanent, it works as a permanent piece yes and I believe it worked in that context because its only meant to be there for the week, so yes I think it works well for a week.

Jools Gilson, Artist:
I don't know yet really, I didn't mirror what Mary Brady said earlier because I'm living in Cork, unlike some of the Belfast artists, to spend quite a lot of time at the site going through old documents and going through research documents an talking to people working there and doing that kin of work, which I loved and got more and more embroiled in it. My initial ideas were a bit fantastical in the sense that I'd hoped in the six weeks which was naïve obviously as you'd need six years to do that to record some stories - I wanted to audio work on the piece which I haven't in the end. Maybe because I realised in the end that it takes a long time to do that, I'm English, I'm a stranger. For me what is successful about the work is invisible to audiences its about meeting the dockworkers, talking with them for a about a half an hour or an hour talking/ watching the football, that kind of work, it feels like the beginning of something that could be more profound and really engage with that site which in six weeks you can't really begin to do that. I won't know until people go down there and engage with it. For me its the difference between how much people hear or go and see my work and also who else will go, that's really important, will the guy in Customs and Excise, will the Dockers go and get the keys. I don't know if they will? I don't know? Its very near the Simon Community, there's a lot of drunks around and the first night we had the Gardai and they looked embarrassed and left, we had keys and we were in the Bonded Warehouse. Last night we were down there and a drunk came over and said, "Go on and get out of there" that as much a part of the work but its difficult to judge.

Mick Wilson, Artist, Writer & Lecturer:
I think we're getting the pressure here to close down!

Neil Hegarty, City Architect Cork City Council:
I'd welcome very much the involvement of artists in the selection of architects, particularly maybe the National Sculpture Factory as a group, but the person with the most influence in the selection of architects in the Republic of Ireland is Tony Blair, he is the person who selects all the architects in Ireland because of his huge enthusiasm for public/ private partnership has spilled over here. So that what's happening in Ireland now, Tony Blair is the selector of architects in Ireland.

Danny McCarthy, Artist:
What I'd like to say is whether the work is successful or not as a model the practice initiated by the National Sculpture Factory and the facilitations they gave through Mary and Clare and the rest of the Staff in the Sculpture Factory speaking as an artist was beyond compare. They didn't interfere with the work practice, they bent over backwards with Mathew as well to help us facilitate and make the work that we wanted to make. So I think they should follow that model again in the future. It was an excellent example.

Aisling Prior, Ballymun Regeneration:
I'm don't like talking into microphones - Asking how you know if something is successful or not is very difficult question. What is the measure of success in itself but I think the temporary measure of success is when there gone if there remembered that's occurred quite a lot in the discussion today with Isabel recounting of the text piece in Scotland and to Fran Hegarty's text pieces around Dublin to Dorothy Cross's 'Ghost Ship', these temporary projects that linger on in memory and I think its only when there gone if they can be assessed if they were successful or not.

In terms of a small project that's happening out in Ballymun at the moment the 'Illumination of the Boiler House' it was only lit for about a month when some technical complication arose and it was turned off and the staff of the boiler house were really disappointed it wasn't working any more. I think that was interesting when Mary brought up the point earlier, the very opening phrase of the discussion today when you said audience development and the audience may be very small and it might be just the audience the artist is engaging with whether its staff of the site they are working with or the neighbours of a small site that is looking onto where the work is being made and I think its very important audience doesn't have to be huge vast number of people but a very small group of people that are involved in the process and in terms of Andrew's 'Illumination of the Boiler House' in Ballymun the audience were primarily the crew of the boiler house which was about 30 men who were touched and moved by that piece, they enjoyed it coming on at night and what I hear back and its purely anecdotal, the residents of the flats looking out onto the illuminated shaft of the chimney it seems to give them some sort of pleasure.

Concluding Remarks:
Mick Wilson, Artist, Writer & Lecturer:
It would be silly of me to even try to recapitulate or summarise what we've covered this morning, there are two things I would like to pick out of it. One, there is an emerging situation that demands some kind of concerted activity of advocates like the National Sculpture Factory or the various agencies in the arts here but also on the part of artists themselves to define roles and to engage with these large development processes. What I'm hearing here is that there's openness, a receptiveness to that kind of input, which I think, is very laudable on the part of the various civic authorities here. I do think there's an opportunity here for artists to become meaningful and coherently engaged with urban development in Cork.

The second thing is maybe a counter point to that its apparent that our expectations of what it is artists can do are really quite extreme and quite extensive, we are seeing the artists as being the way to re establishing the public sphere which has been, the public sphere which has been lost to the mass media, advertising and so forth. We are imagining that artists can revivify the democratic process, that somehow the artist can come in and be a transparent agent who represents the community, the public, and the great unwashed out there who are voiceless. And I think these expectations of the artists need to be seriously considered and I think what has been absent within the Irish context in this question is the input of people like Grant Castor and similar critics in the States who kind of really engaged that question of what is it we imagine an artist can be that we would delegate to them this function of serving as the agent of democracy or representative of all these numerous and various communities and I do think its very interesting this much more modest expectation the artist has. We talk of the small local relationships, Jools talks about the people working on the site where her work is on display or Aisling mentions the 'Boiler House' in Ballymun, that very modest engagement with a very small but specific constituency, I wonder if perhaps that might be the opening rather than much more nebulous ideas of the artists as the spokesperson for this huge sprawling communities.

Mary McCarthy, Director NSF:
To remind you that from our point of view again this was a pilot project, so the National Sculpture Factory through doing this with Horsehead International have learned a lot, its been a stretching process. I think a lot of us that are at these discussions often go 'where do we go next' but I feel we are always getting to a more intelligent place actually in the debate, but I feel we are getting to more intelligent ground, its sometimes unfortunate that you do a lot of work with one Minister and then its gone the whole Department is restructured. But I am glad to see a lot of the Arts Council past and present staff here that are working in the area and local authorities here. There are a lot of interesting projects going on in Ireland through such projects in 'Visualise in Carlow', through projects that I'm aware of that were commissioned via Deirdre Enright in Kerry County Council recently and the works that Aisling is doing in Ballymun.

I would sincerely like to thank the nine artists and encourage you to go and see the work today while you're here. They have worked really hard with us on this process.

So thank you very much for attending.

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