Sculpture Dublin

Dublin City Council is pleased to announce the launch of Sculpture Dublin and a series of city-wide public art commissions. Five of the six commissions are open competitions, designed to attract the interest of Irish and international artists. One of the commissions, a land artwork, is an invited competition and artists will be nominated by an international panel of experts. 

Following consultation and a survey of sites, locations for the new commissions have been identified in each of the five Dublin City Council Local Administrative Areas; the Ballyfermot People’s Park (under development); Bushy Park, Terenure; Kildonan Park, Finglas; Smithfield Square Lower and St Anne’s Park, Raheny. A temporary sculpture will be commissioned for the historic O’Connell Plinth outside Dublin City Hall. Full details of the commissions are available at www.sculpturedublin.ie/commissions/

Sculpture Dublin aims to embody a broad, inclusive vision which will enable the exploration of ideas as diverse as leisure and landscape; environmentalism and climate change; history, migration and identity; materiality; human and non-human ecosystems; artificial and organic coexistence. The curatorial framework is structured around each commission site, with special emphasis given to historical context, topography and engagement with local and user-communities. 

Sculpture Dublin aims to frame public sculpture as a space of participation; to raise awareness of sculpture in the city—encouraging people to rediscover Dublin through sculpture, to imagine new possibilities for art in the public realm, and to engage in shared processes of learning and making. It follows Sinéad Hogan’s definition of sculpture as a "place of interaction" wherein objects are actuated by co-constitutive relations, between environment, materials, spaces, makers, skills, techniques, and when set in place, sculpture "activates the specific area it occupies, as a set of relations, affects and discourses, like a concrete hyperlink."

Sculpture Dublin will work with stakeholders and the wider public over the year ahead to develop a programme of partnerships and associated activity. Through talks, tours and workshops, online presentations and publications, and new initiatives including a Sculpture Day and a Developmental Award, Sculpture Dublin aims to make sculpture part of everyday conversation, contributing to overall public confidence, self-awareness and pride of place.

For press enquiries or further information, please contact Astrid Newman at info@sculpturedublin.ie