Emerging out of a motion from last year's AGM, ddr. presents Space Wars: Place x Media x ddr. x The City.

Space Wars: Place x Media x ddr. x The City will be an afternoon of discussion, presentations, workshops and games in order to envision a future where ddr. and organisations that share a similar ethos can begin to imagine a collective future together.

The day is a response to the rampant development that is ripping through the capital and our need to stake a claim to the city. We want to strengthen and anchor the community spirit that ddr. as fostered over the past seven years and use that energy to create a collective and sustainable future for the station and partner organisations.

We envision this as co-operative and collective, one that feeds into a radical future for the city and for that we need your support.

Space Wars will hear from those who have opened up spaces for culture and politics, been at the forefront of Ireland's most important social movements, or currently hold on to studio space in the midst of Dublin's tumultuous times.

After the panel discussions, we will host a wargaming exercise. Wargaming is an experiential group exercise where an organisation can pressure test and develop a strategy. It will help create new plans and ideas by role-playing and teasing out avenues of inquiry, charting various options and situational factors, opportunities that could be exploited or circumstances that may lead to floundering or demise.

The wargaming approach intends to shakes things up, challenges norms, and takes a fresh look at the topic.

It will seek answers to questions like:

What would this look like? What are the pathways to this becoming a reality? What obstacles are in the way? What alliances need to be made, who has to be lobbied? How do we raise funds? What opportunities will a licensing law shake up bring? Can we take advantage of the “meanwhile” use conversation etc?

Finally the night will include with pizza, music and chats! Entry is free, the room is large. Bring your friends and let's get down to designing the future together.

Confirmed Speakers:

Maeve Brennan lives in Dublin and is a member of, and Chairperson of Richmond Road Studios, which is now operating out of Phibsborough Tower. She has been working from Richmond Road Studios since 2005 and has been involved in directing and co-directing the studios since 2007. In 2022, after the studios went into receivership, she led a campaign to save the studio and to highlight the general dearth of affordable studio spaces in Dublin.

She graduated from DIT (TU) in 2003, with a degree in Fine Art. Since then she has exhibited throughout Ireland to include group shows at The Royal Ulster Academy, RUA Red in Dublin, the Claremorris Open Exhibition in Co. Mayo, Cairde Visual in Co. Sligo, The Courthouse Gallery in Co. Clare and Signal Arts in Co. Wicklow. She has also had solo shows in The Upstairs Gallery in Co.Kilkenny, and the Samhlaíocht Gallery in Tralee.

She was the recipient of the Irish News Prize 2020, at The Royal Ulster Academy Open at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. Her work is held as part of the collection of the Civil Service of Northern Ireland as well as in private collections.

Ciaran Moore (ex-Dublin Community TV and Unite The Union). Ciaran will talk about his days in Indymedia and his years as a manager of Dublin Community TV. DCTV is a not-for-profit democratically ran co-operative television station that has access to the cable network. In its heyday it had two studios in the city, and delivered a range of community driven programming. Ciaran will bring his experiences with the longer legacy of alternative media in the city into the room.

Grainne Griffin (ex-Seomra Spraoi, Abortion Rights Campaign and Together4Yes) and will talk about the long and deep history of organising that went into establishing 10 Belvedere Place as a social centre in the north inner city. She was intrinsic to the emergence of Seomra Spraoi (not to mention the Abortion Rights Campaign) and part of a wave of social movement politics in the city that erupted in the early 2000s. She will help us look at the wider context and social milieu that gave birth to Seomra Spraoi, talk about its ideals and the problems it faced before eventually winding down and being reborn as Jigsaw.

Andrew Flood is a long standing anarchist activist in Dublin. He will talk about his experiences with the Garden of Delight in the 1990s and places he visited while touring North America, and his particular experiences of social centres in Spain and Italy. Andrew has written extensively on the role of collectively managed spaces in social movements and the role counter-culture plays within them.

Shane O'Curry is the Director the Irish Network Against Racism. He is a member of the Pit Stop Krew Scooter Club who use the Inchicore CIE Hall as their base. He is also a current member of the CIE Social Club. He has previously been involved in collectively ran initiatives in Dublin (Garden of Delight), Bradford ( 1 in 12 Club, the 'El Sub' Collective), Cambridge (Argyle Street Housing Co-Op) and Derry (FEIC, The Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign, an anti arms trade collective, The Irish Mexico Group) as well as a number of community development and human rights advocacy initiatives ( Pat Finucane Centre, Bloody Sunday Weekend Committee, Crossbar Bikes Traveller enterprise, Clondalkin Travellers Development Group). He's going to talk us through some of his reflections and observations from being involved in these spaces.

Lisa Crowne is a co-director of A4 Sounds and producer of their arts programme We Only Want the Earth. She has worked with A4 Sounds since 2009 and has worked in numerous roles including the planning and implementation of A4’s new studio model in 2014 following the redevelopment of their first studio building.