Placemaking and Community
Placemaking is about strengthening the physical, social, economic, and cultural connections between people and the places they share. This year’s Business to Arts Awards showcased winning collaborative projects reimagining and reshaping Ireland’s public and private spaces.
Europe’s Largest Digital Art Display ‘Living Canvas’
‘Living Canvas’ is a cultural initiative by property investment company IPUT Real Estate that establishes new ways of exhibiting artworks via a large-scale outdoor installation canalside in Dublin’s city centre. One of the world’s first non-commercial outdoor digital art screens exclusively for artistic and cultural content, it was awarded the Best Large Sponsorship at the 2023 Business to Arts Awards.
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The curved LED display—the largest outdoor screen in Europe dedicated solely to art, measures 21 metres wide and 4 metres long, putting Ireland on the map as a world leader in digital art. Collaborative programming is created seasonally, including thematic programmes linked to Dublin’s cultural calendar, Living Canvas has, to date, showcased 110, mainly Irish, individual artists, writers and poets, including 12 new commissions.
Placemaking is at the heart of IPUT’s commitment to Dublin: “Our work with artists not only supports a vibrant arts population to sustain a creative city, but it also creates more attractive places for the wider public, ensuring an enhanced experience for those who live and work in the neighbourhoods in which we are active,” said Gemma Tipton, Cultural Projects Manager of IPUT.
The display attracted interest and attention outside the traditional art gallery realm with benefits that extended beyond culture, including a decline in anti-social behaviour in the area.
Artist Aideen Barry said: “It’s well-documented that the happiest societies are the ones that have free access to culture. This form of Placemaking normalises the presence of creativity and arts in the public realm, challenging hierarchies of arts access and generously disseminating into non-art spaces. It positions Ireland as an outlier and leader in terms of consideration of the cultural welfare of our citizens.”
Housing Crisis Project Engages Wider Community
This year’s winner of the Best Use of Creativity in the Community Award supported by Irish Life is ‘Housing Unlocked’, an initiative by the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF) and The Housing Agency. The partnership saw architects propose solutions to the housing crisis, which were then exhibited in Science Gallery Dublin, accompanied by a comprehensive events programme to engage the general public in this critical issue.
A key priority of the partnership was to provide a space for public dialogue around housing in Ireland. For both partner organisations, it was important that the Housing Unlocked exhibition reached communities beyond architecture, cultural or policy sectors.
Working together, they used the creativity and know-how of architects and professionals in related disciplines to devise 20 innovative and achievable action points that could have a significant impact on unlocking Ireland’s housing potential. These were then presented to policymakers, with two Local Authorities committing to piloting projects from the exhibition.
Both organisations remain profoundly motivated to use the exhibition and its engagement programme to access unheard voices in communities across Ireland—from metropolitan areas to market towns—to stimulate meaningful and critical discussion, and make all proposals and findings available to policymakers at every opportunity.
Creativity of Young People Transforms Dublin Station
‘Actually I Can’ is a collaborative art/education project commissioned by Iarnród Éireann Irish Rail, with the aim of enhancing the public spaces at Howth Junction & Donaghmede Rail and Dart Station. The collaboration with Trinity Youth Services and Fresco Consulting won the prestigious Jim McNaughton Perpetual Award for Best Commissioning Practice, supported by TileStyle at this year’s awards.
The partnership saw multiple artists working with more than a dozen young people from Trinity Youth Services to completely transform the train station walls at Donaghmede through colour, messages of positivity, nature, biodiversity, history and community. Artists who provided assistance included KinMx, KloWi, Artur Oner and Arububu.
The partnership afforded the youth of Donaghmede an opportunity to showcase their talent and creativity, as well as their youth club motto “Actually I Can”. Highly educational, the project also demonstrated the power of art and colour to impact mindsets, creating positive memories for all involved. The judges felt that this partnership encapsulated a new angle on best commissioning practice, one which brought multiple partners together for societal good via public art.
Hannah Creevy of Fresco Consulting spoke about how the collaboration “instilled so much pride in these young people and their families, increasing not only their self-belief but their interest in the arts,” with Iarnród Éireann noting that the project enabled true relationship-building with the community.
Speaking about the shared benefits of such creative partnerships, Louise O’Reilly CEO of Business to Arts said: “These award-winning partnerships demonstrate that whether you are trying to co-create a shared social understanding of a space with employees or the community around you, artists have a way of mediating those interactions that can provide a truly meaningful partnership opportunity with mutually beneficial outcomes”.
The Business to Arts Awards, now in its 31st year, recognises businesses, philanthropists, artists, and arts organisations that develop creative partnerships. Entrants focus on arts sponsorship, commissioning of artists, staff engagement and CSR initiatives, philanthropy, and community engagement. To discuss available supports for creative partnerships with your arts programme or corporation or to become a member of Business to Arts, contact info@businesstoarts.ie