The artistic director of Project Arts Centre in Dublin, Kathy McArdle, has resigned. Her decision will take effect from mid-January 2002 "thus ensuring a smooth handover to the new appointee", as it was put in the statement from the Centre announcing her resignation.

McArdle has held the post since October 1999, when the new Project premises on Essex Sreet, Temple Bar, was nearing completion. She tendered her resignation to the Board of Directors on Monday.

The Directors "very much regret her imminent departure" the Board said, and its members wished to put on record McArdle's "achievements in Project in overseeing the work of the organisation at a difficult time of transition". She had "adroitly managed the completion of the last phase of the construction programme" at the Centre, the Board said. It praised her for her managerial and administrative achievements and for leaving behind "a committed staff and an effectively functioning organisation."

It continued that McArdle was leaving Project "because she is interested in pursuing other creative and artistic opportunities" and that she would be "sorely missed by her colleagues and the constituencies of artists of all disciplines who worked with her in her time at Project."

In an accompanying statement, McArdle said "I always maintained that if Project is not constantly changing it will be dying and feel strongly that change will be a healthy thing for Project. A new appointment is timely given that Project has come through the worst of its transition period and can only be for the benefit of the organisation and the artists who work there."

Her statement continues: "I would like to thank the brilliant team at Project and the Board for their consistent support of me in my two years with Project. People will have many different perspectives on my work there - that is inevitable. I would like to make it clear that all my work has been motivated by asking how and if art can have meaning for people in a complex and difficult world." She hoped Project would go from strength to strength and would never lose "its questioning courageous attitude in the face of a highly conformist society."

To make art "that swims against the prevailing tide nowadays is a tough process, new building or no. I wish Project well in its struggles," she concluded.

Kathy McArdle's departure follows that of a number of members of her senior management staff at Project. Its curator of talks and critical events, Tim Brennan, has also announced that he is leaving and is expected to do so next month.

In November of last year, the centre's curator of visual arts, Valerie Connor, left following a legal settlement, while on Tuesday of last week the Centre settled a constructive dismissal case brought against it by its former technical director, Debbie Behan. She had worked with Project from July 1997 until September 2000. Announcing the settlement in her case, the Board said in a statement that she was "highly regarded within Project and within the artistic community generally" and was "a valued member of the senior management.

"Her input to the work of Project was skilful and creative," it said, and continued that "the Board of Project and its artistic director wish Debbie Behan the very best and look forward to working with her in the future."

Among those prepared to give evidence on Behan's behalf at the Employment Appeals Tribunal hearing in the case on July 16th last were Project's former visual arts curator, Valerie Connor, former public affairs officer, Janice McAdams, and former manager, Tom Coughlin - all of whom had left since McArdle's arrival at the centre.

Valerie Connor's departure last November was the culmination of a series of internal difficulties at Project, to which visual artists in Ireland and abroad reacted strongly. One hundred and forty-seven of them signed a petition last December saying they strongly disagreed with "the decision to terminate both Valerie's role and the senior programming position of visual arts director in Project."

They continued that Connor was "a highly talented artist, writer and curator. She has worked on many notable art projects and has significantly contributed to the artistic and intellectual development of Project and the Irish arts scene."

Among the signatories were eight members of Aosdβna, including Dorothy Cross, Willie Doherty, Noel Sheridan, Brian Maguire, Kathy Prendergast, Richard Gorman, Cecily Brennan and Samuel Walsh. Other signatories included artists from Ireland, the UK, and the US, as well as many academics.