An art project is helping to regenerate Ballymun. Aidan Dunne reports

Most people can engage with traditional art forms on some level. They don't present too many difficulties. Contemporary art that uses new or unorthodox media and forms is a different kettle of fish, however. It was the US philosopher Arthur Danto who came up with the idea of "artworld", a community made up of arts practitioners and interested parties, and more and more the production, reception and discussion of art happen within this community. Much contemporary work seems content to address an artworld audience.

What kind of art transcends this limited if demanding context? Apart from populist blockbuster exhibitions of perennial favourites such as Van Gogh and the French Impressionists, some of the Brit Artists, such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, have become celebrities who can command large audiences. But there has been renewed interest in exploring art that transcends the artworld in another sense - in terms , that is, of art's social role and public function.

In Ireland, this is beginning to happen through the imaginative application of Per Cent for Art. The scheme, which was introduced by the Department of the Environment in 1988, allows 1 per cent of the budget for public development projects (to a ceiling of just under €65,000 a project) to be earmarked for art. There was always the risk that the scheme would succumb to the rule of the lowest common denominator, leading to projects that, in trying to please everyone involved, would be hopelessly compromised.

Public shouldn't and doesn't necessarily mean populist pure and simple. Multifaceted projects allow for a range of initiatives that engage audiences at various levels and in various ways. That is certainly happening in one of the most ambitious Per Cent for Art schemes, Breaking Ground, launched a little more than a year ago under the aegis of Ballymun Regeneration and now ongoing, with a budget of about €800,000. Its strategy, closely based on the recommendations of a 1997 Government report, was devised by the Artworking consultancy, and a broadly based artistic steering committee was appointed.

There was never any question of buying art off the peg or of commissioning, say, a big, generic modernist sculpture - a classic piece of plaza art for Ballymun. It may sound obvious, but a central part of the philosophy is that art projects should relate to the community rather than being merely impositions.

This aspiration is reflected in the relative complexity of the commissioning and making process. Declan McGonagle has described Breaking Ground as a museum without walls. It is a good way of looking at a process that involves about 30 artists and a plethora of ideas and approaches, from fixed three-dimensional sculpture in the traditional sense to ephemeral cultural events and highly structured training schemes. "It is," as Aisling Prior, Breaking Ground's artistic director, puts it, "like an arts laboratory." It's hard to predict the outcome of some of the experiments, but the possibilities are tremendous.

One of the first visible fruits of the scheme, John Kindness's photographs of Ballymun sisters, is an aspect of a work in progress. The artist set up a photographic studio and went out to look for sisters. He photographed 48 subjects, from six to 60 in age, all in profile. Just two pairs of sisters will be the subjects for the final stage of the work.

Each will be painted in a style of heightened realism, recalling the formal portraits of the Renaissance - but on a car bonnet. One of Kindness's hallmarks is the contemporary spin he puts on classical forms. The paintings will eventually hang in Ballymun's new civic offices.

Breaking Ground also attracted the attention of the German artist Jochen Gerz, who has an impressive track record in projects that entail a significant degree of public participation. He is currently working on The Future Monument in Coventry, for which he is rather ingeniously asking the people of the city to come up with the names of former enemies, eight of which will be inscribed on glass plates, a prelude to a process that is ultimately about change and tolerance. His proposal for Ballymun involves a glass and light monument in the new Ballymun plaza, inscribed with the names of those who have bought shares in a tree-planting scheme. The theme is civic responsibility.

The myriad projects that will make up Breaking Ground will run throughout the regeneration process - that is, into 2005 - and some will be permanent. Not all, though. The strategy identified four distinct, often overlapping strands of endeavour.

These include projects that engage with the community, including Kindness's and Gerz's. Then there are commissioned works that relate to the physical fabric of the emergent Ballymun. These include major sculptural projects by Corban Walker and Daphne Wright and new paintings by Mark Francis. Intriguingly, Alberto Dumain and St John Handley propose turning a lift shaft in one of the tower blocks into a periscope.

There are also one-off, temporary events. One of the most intriguing initiatives here, scheduled for September, is a curatorial one, entitled Superbia, by Stephen Brandes and Paris-based Brigid Harte. They plan to open to the public an existing three-bedroom house, 11 Coultry Gardens, as a venue for an international exhibition of contemporary art. Those lined up to exhibit include Shane Cullen, Nick Laessing, Malachi Farrelly, Brendan Earley, Isobel Nolan and Daragh Hogan.

Educational and other processes of direct involvement were also encouraged. There was considerable interest in a bronze-casting workshop involving the artist Dave Kinane. With eight participants, this is a lengthy, highly structured project that has already produced significant results.

Equally, the writer Lia Mills has recruited eight participants for an almost year-long series of writing workshops. Both projects are designed to connect with untapped local talent.

As it has worked out, many of the artists involved are literally part of the community for a time. Ballymun Regeneration has very helpfully provided an artists' house, which is now fully booked. Prior is particularly pleased: "It means that when the artists are here, they really are here," she says. "They live and shop and work here. It's really contributed to the air of optimism."