In August 2024, former minister for finance Paschal Donohoe was fielding questions from reporters in advance of the publication of a report from the Dublin City Taskforce. Donohoe insisted Dublin was a “great city to live, visit and go out in”. He made these remarks in the markets area of the city between Capel Street and Smithfield at The Complex, a large multipurpose arts venue for which he reserved special praise. “We are standing in an amazing complex that’s only opened in recent years that is an example of the change that’s under way in the city centre,” he said.
Cut to December 2025, and the website of that “amazing” venue declares, “The Complex has been given notice to quit on 14th January 2026 #SAVETHECOMPLEX.”
The Complex is the only large multipurpose space in the city of its kind. News of its potential closure has caused uproar among the arts community and audiences.
Dublin City is used to this cycle; a cultural space is threatened, and people immediately organise to resist its potential loss, launch petitions and throw their hands up in frustration. All of this happens in a city with far less cultural infrastructure and fewer interesting social spaces than other European capitals.
READ MORE
A former fruit warehouse, The Complex houses 16 art studios, mostly for visual artists. There’s a gallery, a venue for jazz and improvised music called The Cooler (rented to the Improvised Music Company), a large multipurpose space called the Depot and a venue bar. “We’re probably the only place that does it all, we can do everything,” its director, Vanessa Fielding, told me last week.
The lease has been extended a few times, and now ends on January 14th. Intent on securing the space’s future, the venue organisers have wanted to buy their part of the building for some time. Last year, they developed a business plan to present their case to the Department of Finance, the Department of Public Expenditure, the Department of Culture and Dublin City Council. They have met with ministers. But a commitment for funding from the Department of Finance – which is where the bulk of funding has to come from – never landed. Now, Dublin is once again at risk of losing a vital cultural space.
A developer intends to build student accommodation on the site. However, they are willing to sell The Complex’s two-storey existing space (plus a little extra) back to them. This would cost €7.6 million, and The Complex is seeking €6 million from the department, with other funders making up the shortfall. This plan would also allow The Complex to increase the capacity of the Depot space from 350 to 500. They don’t need the cash now. They just need a commitment from the Department of Finance that funding will be granted, so that the building owner (and indeed the developer) understands what the future holds.
The great thing about The Complex is its malleability as a space. It’s a place I’ve attended for so many different kinds of events: film festivals, theatre, visual art exhibitions, drag shows, club nights, even conferences about arts spaces in Dublin.
The Complex first established itself in the depths of the recession in an empty ground-floor unit on Smithfield Square. In 2018, it moved to its current site. It also had a space on nearby Green Street at one point. That site is now a Staycity aparthotel.
A few weeks ago, I was at The Complex for an incredible evening in the Depot space. Inspired by the Fluxus movement and the work of John Cage, it was probably the best arts event I’ve attended in the city this year. The Complex commissioned the experimental music collective Kirkos – which runs Unit 44 nearby – to curate bands, improvised music, performance art, painting, audio visual experimentation, and a performance of Cage’s 4’33”, famously four minutes and 33 seconds of “silence”. But of course, there’s no such thing as silence. During that performance, we were able to hear the sounds of the audience and the sonics of the industrial space – the walls of an old place now housing boundary-pushing contemporary art. You could hear the city at night. For me, this piece is a reminder to listen and to pay attention.
So who will listen to The Complex? Granting this funding and securing the future of the space is a no-brainer. We have two Ministers in charge of our money – Simon Harris and Jack Chambers – who are part of the same generation as many of those making art in The Complex. Surely they can understand the importance of having cultural space in the capital?
Fielding calls herself an optimist. Running a cultural space in Dublin, you’d want to be. She wants to impress upon the public that the space can be saved and “until its gone, it’s not gone”. But the clock is ticking. Creating something like The Complex from scratch in the city centre would cost multiples of what it needs now to survive. “They’re getting a really good deal,” Fielding says. “It’s right here, it’s running.
“It’s been a fantastic place to come to every day. It’s not that everybody has a positive day every day, but we’re all comrades. It does make you feel that there’s a purpose in life beyond being a consumer. It’s been a really great project. If it does collapse, I’ll look back on it and be really proud of it.” Why? Because, she says, “It has integrity.”
