ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the art practice and process of Art Tunnel Smithfield and issues of participation, place attachment and crossing of thresholds and barriers to participation. It focuses on what has been termed 'the vacant land issue' seen in Dublin and the role that Art Tunnel Smithfield and the wider Dublin arts and community sector has to play. Art Tunnel Smithfield was an urban art gallery and garden-based community space in the Smithfield area of Dublin, begun in 2012 by landscape architect, gardener and artist Sophie Graefin von Maltzan of Fieldwork & Strategies. The social practice art at Art Tunnel Smithfield functioned through the act of gardening, a social horticulture analogous to a living mural and a site where people could be creative without needing to be 'an artist'. The culture of temporary land use in Dublin was seen to be contributing to urban life through the generation and encouragement of new urban activities, a bespoke 'Dublin new urbanism'.
