Drawing life in the Liberties

Drawing the Liberties classes are well underway at the Robert Emmet Community Development Project (RECDP) centre on Usher Street. The art classes, open to any adults interested in sparking their creativity, are free of charge every Friday night.

Drawing the Liberties encourages locals to come in and learn how to create masterpieces inspired by the area around them. The aim is to not only develop one’s skills as an artist, but also provides an outlet to narrate how they feel about their community.

Austin Campbell from the RECDP said, “It gives people an organic voice where its not people, say, giving out about development but people still get their points across in a really organic, constructive way that isn’t angry.”

The RECDP is also hosting a number of other free classes, including photography classes on Mondays as part of its new Robert Emmet Photography Club for locals to capture the life of Dublin 8. There is also creative writing classes on Tuesdays to aid in telling the stories of those who live in the area.

Both the work produced in these classes along with that of Drawing the Liberties will be collated and published in a book called Our Liberties, which will launch on January 14th.

Austin felt that the classes were extremely important in confidence building for the community. He said, “The ability to be part of an exhibition or the ability to be published as an artist, photographer or as a writer when you only came in a few weeks beforehand, I think it gives people confidence.” 

As well as the book, the RECDP will also create an audio archive where locals can tell anecdotes, childhood memories or even their favourite jokes. The interviews will be transcribed and added to Our Liberties. 

Drawing the Liberties runs right up to Christmas with Austin encouraging anyone interested to get involved even at this stage. He said, “The more people that get involved, the more people that come to classes, the more we can see that there’s a need or there’s a desire for stuff like this.”  

For more information, contact austin@recdp.ie.