The Central Field

A temporary live land artwork. This site-specific project took place in Adamstown, a suburban new town in South Dublin County which has been in development since 2005. The artists identified this greenfield site which was due to become the 'commercial or district town centre’ of Adamstown but had been fenced off and inaccessible to the local community.

The Central Field responded to the development site and context in Adamstown during the interim phase of development. Over a one year period the artists negotiated with Castlethorn Development to gain access and to work onsite.

In February 2018 the artists moved a container studio onsite and negotiated permission to put a gate in the boundary fence opening it up to the local community. For a period of six months from February to July 2018 the artists were in residence onsite. During March 2018 the artists staged a live land artwork where they made daily, onsite performances in response to the land and worked towards creating a large-scale land artwork using discarded materials from the Adamstown development with access to machinery, labour and expertise from the adjacent, active, building site.

Over six months the artists produced a series of live and immediate responses, actions, earthworks, public events, workshops, performances, interventions, gatherings and activities. They collaborated with local residents, local schools and community groups. The aim was to make this land a place for gathering and to explore concepts of transition and potential land use, private and public ownership, intrinsic value, materiality, responsibility and our individual and collective agency.

Visual Artists Ireland - In Our Time – Nathan O’Donnell discusses South Dublin County Council’s Public Art Project In Context 4.

Published: November–December 2018.

Rhona Byrne and Yvonne McGuiness are Dublin-based artists who since 2015 together have produced ambitious socially engaged and contextually responsive projects.

In 2015/16 Rhona Byrne and Yvonne McGuinness were commissioned by Fingal County Council Arts Office for their 1916 Commemorative Public Art Commission to create Mobile Monuments; a cross-generational participatory project, involving three mobile sculptures that became arenas for performance events across Fingal County. In 2017 they were shortlisted for Knocknaheeny regeneration public art commission supported by The National Sculpture Factory, Cork.

The Central Field engaged with Adamstown's community and residents and 5th and 6th class pupils from Adamstown Educate Together, 1st, 5th and 6th year pupils from Adamstown Community College, construction workers.

Photographer: Giulia Berto

Curators: Claire Power and Aoife Tunney