Grapevine Arts 1973 - 1988
Ballyfermot Arts Week '83Grapevine Arts the forerunner of CiyArts, arose from an initiative by three Dublin teenagers at the start of the 1970's, Jackie Ahern, Anto Fay and Sandy Fitzgerald. Originally conceived as a 'support and production network' to help develop contemporary arts practice among their peers, it quickly became clear that a permament base, other than the bedrooms of Anto in Artane and Sandy in Cabra, was needed to accommodate all the activites and people who began to gravitate towards the Grapevine idea. Thus the concept of an arts centre was born.
The story in audio
What marked Grapevine out from the beginning was a focus on creating rather than simply presenting, it was, in the true sense of earlier 1960's experiments in other parts of the world, a laboratory for creative expression. Many people who were attracted to the centre to attend an event often returned, joining a growing number of makers and performers who were learning, teaching and presenting at the same time and across all mediums and disicplines, with much collective interaction and support.
Opened in 1974, the first home of Grapevine Arts was one room on the second floor of a dilapidated Georgian building at 53 Mary Street. This room quickly became the centre of activity for a growing constituency of people and exhibitions, folk nights and poetry readings. In addition to these weekly events, the centre supported two rock bands, Aton and Harvest Research, and an open submission exhibition Expression 74, which was presented in the Mansion House, Dublin.
After only nine months, it became clear that more space was needed to cope with the demand. This led to Grapevine's second home at 39 North Great Georges Street, comprising several rooms on the ground floor in this larger and better maintained building. Within twelve months Grapevine Arts Centre had established itself with a grant from the Arts Council, in a location that one newspaper described as 'Indian Country', with a growing number of users who were determined to make their cultural voice heard.
By the late 1970's, Grapevine's third home on North Great Georges Street housed scores of people trying out new ideas. Besides theatre, dance and visual art, the centre also had an alternative hair cutting enterprise, a DIY fashion studio, a design studio and Tai Chi workshops. The centre also participated in many campaigns and street events, actively engaging with issues of the day from gay rights to anti-nuclear festivals.
As the 70's came to a close, the centre was already considering a new building because the Grapevine home in North Great Frederick Street was full to capacity. Other changes were emerging too, as political activism began to crystallise into a policy direction, later to become known as community arts. This change also resulted in seams of tension at the juncture where radicalism collided with ideas of free expression. Generosity of spirit that was a founding principle of the centre prevailed and Grapevine developed as Ireland's leading community arts organisation of the 1980's.
The early 1980's witnessed Grapevine Arts Centre engage with a developing idea: That culture was important in the struggles for equality and that everyone had a right to a cultural voice within society. The term 'community arts' came into use, a term imported from similar initiatives in England.
As community arts developed as a sector, Grapevine Arts both led and traced this development by contributing to a collective debate and by planning and basing it programme around the ideals and principles of cultural equality. This resulted in the centre housing and funding the first administration office and administrator for the fledgling community arts organisation CAFE (Creative Activity For Everyone) now CREATE.
During this period, the centre began to work intensively with community organisations and resource organisations such as libraries, youth clubs and activist groups. Grapevine was visible on the street as it toured the country, presenting free shows, adding energy to demonstrations and campaigns. This idea was further developed as Grapevine began to help initiate, support and contribute to community festivals in areas of Dublin such as Coolock, Ballyfermot, Finglas and the Inner City.
Grapevine contextualised this work by creating many platforms where these new cultural ideas could be debated, including the first community arts conference (with CAFE), the first Arts and Health conference (with the Dublin Healthy Cities Project) and the first Arts and Disability conference (with the National Rehabilitation Board).
When the centre moved to its new home in Moss Street on Dublin's City Quay, it continued its outreach prgramme, but also became a hub of creativity for many Dublin communities, not least the local South Inner City community of City Quay and Westland Row.
