Story of DCA

Dundee Contemporary Arts is a new building and a new institution, both brought into being by the partnership between three main bodies and the collaboration of a number of organisations and individuals. The partnership of Dundee City Council, the University of Dundee and Dundee Contemporary Arts Ltd. is a unique and dynamic one that has developed over the years since the project was first conceived. The idea of a new arts centre in Dundee goes back at least to the mid 1980's. The city had its own purpose built theatre in South Tay Street, but the contemporary visual arts were squeezed into converted rooms in an old bonded warehouse in the Seagate, with the occasional retrospective exhibition taking place at the city's flagship museum, the McManus Galleries.

A particular debt of gratitude is owed to the artists, staff and board members of the Seagate Gallery and Dundee Printmakers Workshop who kept the idea of an arts centre alive over the years and argued persuasively and with passion during the meetings, through which an Arts Strategy was formulated. The Strategy was published in 1994 by Dundee District Council, the result of public consultation and seeking the views of over 150 local and national arts organisations. It proposed the creation of a new centre for the contemporary visual arts.

Throughout the Strategy meetings, artists teaching or running departments at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) were at the side of those involved with the Seagate Gallery and the Printmakers' Workshop. Becoming a Faculty of the University of Dundee in 1996, the College has a growing reputation as one of the top art colleges in the UK, with the Schools of Fine Art, Design and Television and lmaging.

DJCAD's developing links with other art colleges in different parts of the world were an important argument in favour of aiming for a centre of international ambition, with the scale and quality of facilities to match. Among many potential benefits, the presence of such a centre would encourage DJCAD's graduates to stay in Dundee, contributing to the cultural and economic life of the city, rather than leave for Glasgow, Edinburgh or London.

Initiated by the City Council, with support and advice from the Scottish Arts Council, a partnership was developed between the Council, the University of Dundee and a newly formed company - Dundee Contemporary Arts. The new centre was conceived as a unique facility within the UK with museum-standard galleries, cinemas and extensive production facilities for artists, including a print studio (to replace and improve on Dundee Printmakers' Workshop) and a Visual Research Centre for DJCAD.

It was also decided to relocate the existing but part-time Regional Film Theatre to the new centre as a full-time, two-screen operation. To be led artistically by the new company, the centre would actively seek the widest possible audience, encouraging participation and engagement with the artistic programme.

In March 1995, the Council purchased a site for the arts centre at 152 Nethergate, close to Dundee Rep Theatre and the University of Dundee. The sloping L-shaped site was occupied largely by a semi-derelict brick warehouse. This was originally used for supplying coal to the railway marshalling yards occupying the ground below, land reclaimed from the River Tay in the 19th Century. In July 1996, following an international design competition, Richard Murphy Architects were appointed to the scheme, which later that year received the largest award to date of £5.4 million from the Scottish Arts Council National Lottery Fund. Further significant capital support was forthcoming from Scottish Enterprise Tayside, Dundee City Council, the European Regional Development Fund and the University of Dundee.

Work began on the site on 3 March 1997. A brief history such as this, cannot, of course, do justice to the hundreds of individuals who, in one way or other, have helped shape Dundee Contemporary Arts. Most of all the centre as it now appears reflects their vision. At the same time, without the financial backing of the Scottish Arts Council and Dundee City Council to both capital and revenue funding, and the University's of Dundee's creative and financial support, Dundee Contemporary Arts would be an aspiration rather than a reality.

The three partners in the project each bring to Dundee Contemporary Arts specific, if overlapping, traditions which have influenced the centre's policy and plans. The City, which has commissioned the new building, has an impressive history of running museums and galleries as civic places of enjoyment, education and participation. The University, committed to research excellence in the practice of art and design, will be able to offer unique access for centre visitor to the evolution of projects and the creative process. And Dundee Contemporary Arts, through it staff, has the expertise to create exhibition and cinema and programmes education and other events at the forefront of contemporary practice and debate.

The partnership of the three bodies and the coexistence of facilities in the building of course have practical and financial benefits. They also allow for shared expertise and the enormous potential for breaking down barriers not just between artforms, most significantly art and film, but also between production and presentation, between private research and public display.

Crucially, in all of this, Dundee Contemporary Arts is also a new place to go for the inhabitants of and visitors to Dundee. Backing on to the River Tay, the building sits only minutes from the home of Captain Scott's Discovery, the ship that has become the emblem of the city and the epitome of its new identity, with its international reputation for medical research and innovative creative media industries. Recognising the opportunity that a new art centre would offer to the regeneration of the city and the crucial role to be played in this of the cultural sector as a whole, Dundee City Council and Scottish Enterprise Tayside have given their full backing to the project from the outset.

Dundee Contemporary Arts may quickly seem like an old friend, but the art encountered will always have a sense of the unknown, waiting to be discovered for the first time, or rediscovered in a new context, subject to new interpretations.

The art centre is a place of shifting possibilities, an unpredictable meeting between all kinds of people and all kinds of art. In the deep space of ideas and feeling, memory and meaning, anything can happen.