About Our Studios

Rathmines | Harold’s Cross | Crumlin | Blackpitts

MART Studios: Providing a space to support the production and exhibition of visual art.

MART Studio Member Benefits:

Joining one of Ireland’s largest creative artistic communities with over 150 members across Dublin.
Opportunity to exhibit your work twice a year in our annual Artist & Design Member Exhibitions and as part of our December Showcase.
Occasional free use of our galleries for documentation of work, photoshoots, rehearsals, etc.
Skill Sharing – Connect, share and learn for free with your fellow creative peers.
Regular members Group Critiques & meet-ups.
Curator Visits by MART curators or visiting professionals.
Feature your work on our Website and Social Media to our thousands of followers.
Promote exhibitions and other news through MART Social media channels.
On The Radar For International Exhibitions.
Access To Tools & our Equipment.
No Bills
Superfast Broadband.
Parking where possible.
Open Studio events held throughout the year
Safe & Comfortable Space.
Studio access from 7am to 11pm daily.
Fire and burglar alarm, with security monitored 24hrs a day.
Heart of Vibrant Creative Community.

Check Out our Available Studios Here.

Through MART Studios we pride ourselves on sustaining a community of studios that offer affordable, cooperative and professional environments for the development of all things cultural! We do this by working with local landlords and authorities to inhabit spaces that facilitate artists’ studios and workspaces for creatives. We cater to emerging and established practitioners with a range of studios and project spaces for all forms of creativity. We are the largest supplier of independent space for the arts, cultural and creative community in Ireland, now supporting 150 members in several studio buildings across Dublin.

Our members and studios have a strong impact on the local and national Creative Economy. Our studios have great transport links and neighbour some of Dublin’s best bars, cafés, restaurants & vintage shops. At MART we redevelop buildings, work with local communities, attract and create jobs and improve localities through our main values:

Cultural Advocacy: We advocate for the arts and visual culture, promoting inspiration, education and freedom of expression. We develop creative platforms to support and challenge artists. We dedicate all of our activities to supporting creativity.
Community Building: We regenerate vacant and derelict buildings, allowing them to serve their locality. We create communities of artists allowing for opportunities of collaboration and support.
Sustainability: We operate as a self-supporting organisation and provide a safe studio environment allowing artists to concentrate on their work and sustain their practice in a dedicated space, free from worry.

All income generated by the organisation is invested back into our not-for-profit activities: creating platforms for artists through studios and exhibitions, building refurbishment, providing employment and encouraging the growth of artistic communities.

Key Statistics:

50% Artists & 50% Creatives
40% of our members work internationally
60% of our members collaborate together
Main disciplines include: Visual Art, Illustration, Photography, Painting, Design, Creative Industries
70% of our MART Studio Members believe having a studio has increased their growth and practice
Members use studios for: Creative Community | Collaboration | Professionalism | Raise Profile | Creative Working Environment | Push Boundaries | Peer Support | Less Isolation | Opportunity to Grow

Our Story:

MART was set up by artists for artists. It began in 2007 by Ciara Scanlan and Matthew Nevin as a way to create exhibition opportunities for emerging artists. MART seeks to create opportunities by providing creative platforms to support creatives from all stages of their careers to test new ground. As a curatorial partnership Ciara & Matthew have curated over 200 artists through 50 exhibitions across Ireland, UK, Europe, USA & Japan. In 2013 MART opened two art galleries in a converted old fire station in Rathmines, Dublin 6, and as of 2018 has become the largest provider of studios in Ireland.

Public Opinion:

70% believe MART has had large Dublin 6 & 8 cultural, social, economic growth in the past 5 years
70% believe action should be taken to keep MART and similar organisations sustainable and open
82% believe Studio Spaces like MART are vital in Dublin City
80% believe MART’s Artistic Platforms rate 8/10

Solo & Shared:

MART is proud to provide a wide range of creative studios varying in sizes. We have small and large workshop spaces, contemporary studios and several large Georgian rooms with exposed brickwork and high ceilings. We cater to individuals, small groups and assist in pairing if you’re looking for a comrade to share with.

You can check out our Health & Safety Guidelines here.

As a Mart Member you’d have access to all of our COMMUNITY EVENTS. For example in 2017 that included BBQs, SMART TALKS (our series of industry talks with the VAI and Arts Council among others), Studio Crits and Opens Studio evenings

To enquire about MART Studios, please email stephen@mart.ie.

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Echo Chamber | EUCIDA 2017 EXHIBITION

Echo Chamber – EUCIDA 2017 Exhibition

Featuring: Jeanne Briand, Adam Gibney, Fabien Leaustic, Helen Mac Mahon, Rasa Smite, Paula Vitola.

Curated by Matthew Nevin of MART, Assistant Curator, Deirdre Morrissey.

Lūznava Manor Rēzeknes | Latvia: 9th June – 31st August 2017

RUA RED | Ireland: 16th June – 5th August 2017

Gantner Multimedia Space | France: 24th June – 22nd July 2017

European Connections in Digital Arts / EUCIDA is a 3 year project funded by Creative Europe led by RUA RED Ireland in partnership Gantner Multimedia Space, France and Lūznava Manor Rēzeknes, Latvia. The Project aspires to work collaboratively while demonstrating innovation and high standards contributing to making the Digital Arts sector highly visible internationally.

“an echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an “enclosed” system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresented.”[link]

As a curatorial platform for creation of new work, Echo Chamber has encouraged the dialogue of art and technology as a means of sharing experience and creative practice. Exhibiting simultaneously across Ireland, Latvia and France it showcases six contemporary visual artists, two from each of the host countries, whose practice is rooted in various aspects of digital technology.

Its primary aim to create an accessible conversation and debate between the digital arts, technology, politics, culture and society in an accessible way to a European wide public. The three parallel exhibitions, which mirror each other, will analyse how culture, politics and socio-economical issues are bounced around, applauded, and never truly open within one’s own Echo Chamber; i.e colleagues, friends, families etc.

The exhibitions provide a platform for the artists to push conversation beyond the normal realms of an art audience or local groups, to a further international and trans European audience. By encouraging participating artists to explore and reinvent material, technologies and methodologies, Matthew Nevin, the curator, has worked alongside the artists to re/produce work that can provoke the limitations of the ‘Echo Chamber of the normal gallery environment, into producing powerful, informative and experimental new work to a wider audience.

These artists, often working as the mirror for society, will create new dialogues that challenge conventional views on politics and culture; pushing for examination of our preconceived expectations of what is contemporary art and its relevance to the society we live in. The curator has encouraged the artists to be reactionary and politically engaged in their approach to their practice and tease out new radical ways of viewing and perceiving their art works through technology.

Helen Mac Mahon, who creates artwork through experimentation and investigation into the phenomena of light, movement, perception and space, has produced ‘Mirror Affect’ an interactive piece playing with the mirrored image using a combination of everyday objects and live digital technology.

Jeanne Briand forges links with new technology and craftsmanship to create beautiful sculptural pieces that reference fantasy and trans-aesthetics. Briand’s ‘Gamete Glass’ propose a new form of life, and the origin of the sounds they emit serves to raise questions in the viewer’s mind about the artifice or real existence of the animated forms.

Fabien Leaustic creates sculptural work which while physical has an ephemeral aesthetic. Leaustic’s work ‘Hello World’ activated by the presence of the visitor disturbs our interpretation of our world, evoking an emotional response juggling a naive optimism and a dark poetic duality that defines us.

Rasa Smite is an artist, network researcher and cultural innovator, working with science and emerging media technologies. Smite’s artwork ‘Talk to Me’ is a human-plant communication interface, through which people were asked to send encouraging messages via text & social media to the growing plants, “equipped” with web-cam, wi-fi and loudspeakers.

Adam Gibney’s artwork is generally realised through sculpture, installation, sound and video. ‘Conundrum 8: I am somewhere between we and they’ questions the political and personal use of pronouns. Playing a key role in the construction of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, pronouns help toward the creation and division of societies.

Paula Vitola works through media art & archeology, researching relationships between human and technology. Her work encompasses experimenting with technology and nature, programming and gadget-hacking.

More Information

Echo Chamber | EUCIDA 2017 EXHIBITION

Three parallel exhibitions running simultaneously across Ireland, France and Latvia as part of the EUCIDA project.