Thousands of people have signed a petition to save The Complex arts studio in Smithfield.
At time of going to press on Friday, December 5th, over 4,000 people have signed the petition, growing to 13,000 by December 10th.
The owners of the cultural and arts space were notified this week that they are being evicted on January 14.
The Dublin 7 venue is the latest in a long line of Dublin cultural venues to be shut down during the last decade, with Jigsaw, Block T, Mambos,the Tivoli Theatre, Hangar and OG Bernard Shaw all shutting their doors and contributing to a feeling that Dublin is running out of cultural spaces.
Per the petition on Uplift, “Dublin is running out of places to gather, create, and celebrate.”
“Each time a space disappears, so does a community. Dublin doesn’t just have a housing crisis it also has a culture crisis; we’re losing the places where art happens, where new scenes form, and people come together.”
We need Dublin City Council , Politicians and The Arts Council to take action,” the petition reads.
The Give Us The Night campaign said “The Complex can be saved, but it needs serious conversations between the government and Dublin City Council to facilitate the purchase of the venue,” and noted that a similar arrangement should have happened with the Tivoli Theatre when it closed in 2019.
Arist Chloe Brenan said “no independent art space should ever have to go up against a developer. The fact it’s gotten to that point constitutes a huge failure of Dublin City Council and the government to recognise art as instrincialy essential to our lives as citizens, and to put up place meaningful supports to protect it.”
A comment on the petition read “people are tired of the government virtue signalling their love of the arts and claiming to support artists, yet simultaneously does nothing to prevent vital art spaces like the Complex from being given eviction notices.”
“At what point in time did our government turn their backs on protecting and sustaining these vital spaces for artists? By letting these places vanish, their message is clear: Artists voices do not matter, promoting save spaces for artistic growth does not matter.”
The Complex has received funding from Dublin City Council since 2010, and from the Arts Council since 2018.
Research carried out by local Labour TD Marie Sherlock and her team found that over 50 arts spaces have closed around Ireland over the last 20 years.
Speaking in July 2024, Sherlock said “the reality is that artists’ studios and venues don’t stand a chance when competing against commercial interests; we need to change that,” saying that arts spaces across Dublin have been “hollowed out.”