Testing a city-centre derelict site's potential
Largely hidden by hoarding, overgrown and long underused, for the past few years Test Site has been breathing life into a site on Kyrl's Quay.
Towards the end of 2019, Ailbhe Cunningham saw a poster in the Triskel Arts Centre for a six week ‘Art & Environment Making’ course. Without knowing who was running the programme or what it might entail exactly, she nonetheless decided to sign up, as she was keen to discover more about the local surroundings in her hometown of Cork.
With a background in architecture, Cunningham met multidisciplinary artist Aoife Desmond, who was the organiser of this initiative, and they began to research various vacant and disused spaces across the city.
They didn’t have to travel far.
Based in ‘The Guesthouse’ in Shandon, itself a shared space designed to be adapted for different activities and initiatives, the pair, joined by a few of the other course participants, began their explorations, and from these simple beginnings, the TEST SITE project on Kyrl’s Quay was created.
“We used to go around examining places and see what we came across. A storm blew the hoarding down here, so that’s how we first got access to this space.”
“There were traces of all sorts of plant life but it has so many layers; its history is a real mix of civic, commercial and residential life.”
The space Cunningham is referring to, for those unfamiliar with it, is situated in front of Bridewell Garda Station on Kyrl Street and can just about be viewed over the partition from Coal Quay. The derelict site had been disused for many years before the A&E group decided to intervene. It has in fact, been on the City Council’s derelict sites register or “limbo list” since 2017. Paul Forde and Tom Murray are listed as the owners of the site.
And while the course started out well for Cunningham, Desmond and co. with this discovery, in March of 2020 they were dealt what initially seemed like a blow, but proved to be a stroke of good fortune.
“The project came to a pause when Covid happened, but it turned out well as we went online and started a zine and the more we looked at the project, the more we said there is to it.”
“So we each contacted different people in different departments in the City Council with what our idea was and what the purpose was and we also pitched a proposal to the Arts Council to use the site for three months initially, but we sustained communication with them and three years later we’re still here.”
T+D went for a look around the site last week and at first glance it would be difficult to know in what ways the space is being used. But this, it turns out, is all deliberate and in the next few months TEST SITE, which is managed and curated by Cilla Woodhouse, Darren O’Connor and Cunningham, will host a range of events. The site is also being used as a tree nursery.
“We have two pieces coming up in the Midsummer Festival, ‘The Sun and Only’ by Isadora Epstein and Elinor O’Donovan is hosting a pop up community radio station here as well.”
“At the end of June we’re working with Plugd Record Shop to host an event and in July we’ll have Quarter Block Party, so we’re quite heavily focused on the summer, but every Sunday we also host a sketch and chat event and we’re looking at adding a community board game gathering very soon as well.”
The Kyrl’s Quay site is an example of “meanwhile use”, whereby derelict and vacant sites have a second life, while an eventual course of action is worked out. Cunningham thinks Kyrl’s Quay site is a test site for what can happen.
“Our experience with TEST SITE has proven that when a project has equal levels of community and Council support, change does happen.
“This meanwhile use example of working together is, in our opinion, a key stepping stone for finding ways to work together to tackle long term vacancy and dereliction.”
It’s something the TEST SITE crew would like to see repeated across a city which is blighted by dereliction and vacancy.
Aside from what’s happening over the next while, Cunningham also discussed the two main structures in the space, both of which form striking focal points and have interesting backstories.
“This building was a public toilet built in the 1940’s, which was located in front of the Opera House and for women only, but was moved here stone by stone and reconstructed. Ironically they are now being used as storage space.”
“The Pavillion is a permanent structure, showing it could be used elsewhere and it deliberately showcases the circular economy. It’s an experiment in itself, but the big question for us now is, what do people want to do with a space like this?”
This really is the main issue moving forward because for all the work that has gone into getting TEST SITE where it is today, the group are eager to develop further and to make the entire project a community collaboration.
“It’s been obvious to us from the start that this is something huge and we want to become an organisation of many, across both creative and non creative fields.”
“I have an architect's point of view so I’m used to asking questions, discussing health and safety, budgeting etc. and Aoife knows a whole network of arts practitioners so it has gotten to this point organically.”
“We meet once a week to review finance, policy development, new systems and most importantly how to make decisions for the TEST SITE community, because people approach us with an idea for a project and it comes down to three things, capacity, funding and insurance.”
“If someone can’t afford to pay, we are willing to work with them on funding, so we would never say no solely on account of money, but we’ll try to work with them on a means based system.”
But the more the project advances, the more the group would like to evolve and they see the organisation of a space like this as key to both its future and potentially, other sites elsewhere in the city.
“A huge area of interest for me is to start researching what a suitable structure is to run a space like this, but with this location it could all change next month.”
“If you take on a space as individuals you hold liability, but what is the structure that an individual could run it without administration etc.”
“The project’s ethos is greater than the place, so that if we do have to leave here at some point, it could happen somewhere else in Cork City and leaving here shouldn’t be the nail in the coffin for what we’re doing.”
What then can the people of Cork do to help?
“Definitely come with ideas. We’re especially interested in hearing ideas of how does a community put in place a structure to run a space like this and we’re very keen to collaborate with other communities.”
“There’s so many issues in our society today, but we can collectively solve them. We see every organisation across the city stretched to the limit, including the city council. Dereliction is a very complicated issue and I wish there was a simple solution, but I don’t think there is. But I’d love to hear more people’s ideas.”
“We can treat this space as a living lab where we can bring problems and tease them out, there’s so many people in need as everyone knows, but let’s start bringing ideas together to make them more viable.”
“At the moment the project is limited in what we can take on, even if it’s a good thing, but we’d really like to change that.”
In collaboration with Plugd records, TEST SITE will host its first music gig of the summer on June 29 featuring headliners Coby Sey (ad 93 / nts / london), Elaine Howley (touch sensitive) and David Murphy. Tickets available on Eventbrite.
If you’d like to find out more about TEST SITE, you can visit the website.
