Issue 21

“The Arts” though 🧐? That term... we just don’t feel it really covers just how huge the umbrella is. We sometimes feel that when you say “The Arts” people picture people with monocles watching opera. Contemporary dance outfits portraying trees, or someone telling you that by looking at a landscape painting of a beach, you can decipher that the artist was traumatised by the death of its dog when she was 13.

The term is lofty, and infers an elitism and inaccessibility that we really just want to get off the table right NOW. *clears table dramatically* (the bookcase is COVID 19, obvs).

The Arts is all of the above but it is also EVERYTHING ELSE!! The last time you turned on TV? The Arts. Read a book? The Arts. That time scrolling on Instagram and coming across someone doing gorgeous visuals you love? Lost your mind to an unreal DJ mix? Mel Gibson in facepaint? The Arts. It’s the umbrella term for ALL the industries that elevate any expression of human creativity. And needless to say, the impact that COVID has had on it across the board has been fairly devastating.

As a full creative agency, we’re jammers with people who are knee deep in artsy side hustles or just flat out love consuming The Arts, and the work we create reflects that. So, while we’re commercial in our objectives, we’re ardent allies of The Arts as a whole, and this edition of YOUTH is the culmination of our feelings on what’s happened to the industries across the globe.

But instead of focusing on the bad, we wanted to create an homage to the good. Look at what people are doing to create in the crater. Give a voice to people who are thinking miles outside the box in the hope of changing the game to stay afloat. We’ve spoken to people in Theatre, Festivals, Art, and Clubbing from around the world, to look specifically at what people are doing to rescue their crafts. We want to draw attention to these things with the hope that they might inspire other people to follow suit. An open-source encouragement piece. Everyone we spoke to had amazing ideas and plans, because if there’s one thing that’s certain, is that creators will keep creating.

In addition to this, the issue coincides with Culture Night in Ireland, traditionally a night that celebrates culture and offers free events all over the country, but which in 2020 is back with a bigger than ever schedule of (mainly online) events, and a determination in its tone that shows the resilience of the creative sector. For Culture Night, Thinkhouse has collaborated with Irish club night @NoMoreHotels and Creative studio @algorithm.ie to shine a light on why clubbing is culture. A topic we’re very passionate about. Here’s what our Head Of Creative Dave Byrne said about it in an instagram post

“A couple of nights ago, under the cover of darkness 🕵️‍♂️, @nomorehotels, @algorithm.ie and @thinkhouse wheeled a projector around Dublin, projecting on the former sites of where our favourite clubs used to stand. Why? To send a message that #ClubbingIsCulture and our city needs club spaces.

We hit up the former sites of Hangar and the Tivoli and projected some of the greatest moments from inside these venues on the buildings that stand there now. On Culture Night, we are streaming the whole projection show in an empty @jamparkdublin and you can tune in on YouTube from 6pm. Just search Clubbing Is Culture.

Now more than ever we need to support the clubbing community.

Clubbing is important.

Clubbing matters.

#ClubbingIsCulture ❤❤❤”

So join us in getting a bit war-cry-ish about the whole thing, because the question isn’t if, it’s a matter of when, because we WILL save The Arts.