Introduction

Fiona Whelan and Jim Lawlor (Figure 11.1), based in Dublin, Ireland, have been working together since 2004; Jim as Manager of Rialto Youth Project (RYP), a community-based youth service in Dublin's south inner city; and Fiona as artist in residence there. Together, and in collaboration with a range of other partners in youth work, community development, the arts and beyond, their collaborative practice has been committed to a complex critical exploration of power relations at personal, community and societal levels. In this conversation, they exchange and build analyses of prior arts processes that engaged young people and adults in open-ended dialogical enquiries into power and inequality. They also critically interrogate the values and methodologies at the core of those collaborations. As contemporary youth work and community development in Ireland becomes increasingly evidencebased and outcome-driven, Fiona and Jim both debate and argue for an emergent approach to practice that is collaborative, open-ended, dialogical and imaginative.

Fiona first met Jim when she commenced an artists’ residency in Rialto, Dublin in 2004. Over 16 years, the artist and organisation forged a working relationship, creating the conditions for a trans-disciplinary and open-ended collaborative practice to emerge, committed to exploring and reconfiguring power relations. This includes three major projects – Policing Dialogues (2007–11), Natural History of Hope (2012–16) and What Does He Need? (with Brokentalkers 2018+). This chapter transcribes part of a conversation Fiona and Jim had in late 2019, using the theme of power to examine the possibility of maintaining a critical approach to collaborative art and community-based youth work. At stake is the extent to which the field of practice is increasingly subject to neoliberal and managerial imperatives vis-à-vis prescribed ‘outcomes’.

Setting a context

Rialto is located in the south-west inner city of Dublin and has a population of about 5,000. RYP was established in 1980, from a recognition that the needs of many young people in Rialto were not being met by the traditional youth club model of the 1970s, requiring a distinct role for the new organisation. In its 40-year history, much of the youth work practice in RYP engaged with young people living in two local authority complexes – Fatima Mansions and Dolphin House – while also running an area-wide youth service.