A new Arts Council-funded “all-ages” performance and exhibition space is to open next month in Dublin. Exchange Dublin: Collective Arts Centre has been founded by Trinity College student Dylan Haskins (22), who made an application for the centre to the Council’s Young Ensembles Scheme.

Located on Exchange Street in the city’s Temple Bar district, the non-profit space is supported by the nearby Project Arts Centre and the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, and will be run by an elected team of young volunteers, who will programme its events.

Haskins, who also runs the Hideaway House/ Records venture from his house in Deansgrange, told The Ticketthat the facility was long overdue. "I've wanted a space like this for the past six years and had tried various avenues to achieve it, but it was always impossible with the ridiculous property prices in Dublin over the past 15 years," he said. "As daily users of the city, young people have just as much entitlement to space as anyone else. Exchange Dublin will provide a forum for new ideas and arts, and a gateway to present them."

Although there will be a 10pm curfew on gigs held in the alcohol-free centre, it will remain open past that time.