Putting on another hat

He worked in RTÉ, ran the Arts Council, helped to found the Project theatre, and was general secretary of the Labour Party. Now Colm Ó Briain is director of NCAD. So how does he see his latest incarnation? He talks to Aidan Dunne.

This year, Colm Ó Briain lived up to his reputation for unpredictable career moves by becoming director of the National College of Art and Design for a five-year term.

Not that he wasn't admirably qualified, but still, few would have reckoned him as a contender to succeed the charismatic Noel Sheridan in one of the country's top art posts. In fact, as he points out, the job was advertised twice. He noticed the ad the first time around, was interested, but didn't think he would be rated as an applicant.

"Then the preferred candidate withdrew for health reasons, so there was a second competition. I thought there might be a space for me on the shortlist, even though my career profile would not be conventional for someone aiming for that job." It has to be said though, that there was a view that, once he expressed an interest, he was bound to be a likely bet, not least given his vast and varied experience in the arts, media and political worlds.

His degree, he points out, is in law, not the humanities. But even as a student at UCD and King's Inns he was already heavily involved in theatre in various capacities, and he has maintained what might be described as an intermittent career as a theatrical director in between his other responsibilities. He was instrumental, in 1967, in the creation of the Project Arts Centre, which was for a time based in an Abbey Street storeroom owned by his father. Chairman of the Project for a number of years, he is currently a board member again.

He trained as a producer-director with RTÉ and did a wide range of work for the station, from education and arts to current affairs. It was he who walked Sean Keating around the first Rosc, in 1967, allowing the rebarbative academician to vent his spleeen on jumped-up frauds like Picasso and modern artists.

If there is a consistent trigger for Ó Briain's recurrent changes of direction, perhaps it is his tendency to become impatient with institutional sluggishness. That later prompted his move from RTÉ, at the invitation of Leila Doolan, to take up a position at the Abbey, where she was artistic director. But when she left a year later, he followed suit.

The 1973 Arts Bill cleared the way for a radical overhaul of the Arts Council, expanding the council and allowing for a full-time director. Still, the appointment of the 31-year-old Ó Briain, formerly an outspoken critic of the art establishment, was audacious - and inspired.

During his time there, he more or less invented the Arts Council as we know it now. Although he may not put it in these terms himself, a major part of his strategy could be described as organising, and encouraging, a perception of the arts as a block, a grouping that demanded and achieved serious political consideration. He has said, though, that for him the personal high point was delivering Aosdána.

He was an increasingly reluctant director during his second term at the council and then made what remains his most surprising leap to date: taking on the job of general secretary of the Labour Party. Here, he can probably empathise with Ruairí Quinn, because just two years later, he resigned following poor results in local government elections.

Contemporary reports suggest that the underlying reason for his resignation was that he was unhappy with the lack of progress on organisational reform in the party.

He remains a committed member of the Labour Party and is actively involved, although he holds no office. His professional activities since have ranged across the arts and their political interface, including a stint as an adviser on artistic policy to Michael D. Higgins during his high-profile term as arts minister. And in one or other of his capacities, Ó Briain has not been shy about criticising the Arts Council.

As you might expect of a seasoned, analytical administrator, he has approached the job at NCAD carefully and thoroughly.

"My first priority was to determine the philosophical basis on which each of the departments functions, and to meet with all the staff. But I also want to familiarise myself with the college on a departmental basis, to see the nature of the work that is undertaken, which means being there at the moments of maximum pressure, when I can see the way the space is utilised and what problems there might be.

"In addition, of course, I want to get to know the students - it's not too large a college to be able to do that."

He is aware that because of its national status, the NCAD attracts a high level of scrutiny. Is that an additional pressure? "I wouldn't say a pressure, it's more a responsibility. I'm aware of the responsibility of having to live up to that in terms of responding to national needs. The college recruits staff from all over the country, and the same holds for students. Apart from the students who enrol at the beginning, this year there were 146 applications to transfer here from students taking courses in other colleges. We could only accommodate 26 of them, so I'm aware that this is an area that needs some development."

In fact, in every sphere of its activities, he points out, demands on the college outstrip supply. "That is pressure, but it's the right kind of pressure. It's good that the college should be consistently challenged by the community it serves."

ART and design education has been through the hoops since the 1960s, and it can be unclear what students can actually expect from a college. "Students should reasonably expect to acquire the disciplines that allow them to think creatively, to devise solutions and to acquire the skills to realise those solutions," says Ó Briain. "The experience of college is about getting students to re-examine their own perceptions of the world, their own responses, and to enable them to reorganise these in ways that can form the basis for professional practice in one area or another."

Graduates - and not specifically NCAD graduates - have often bemoaned the fact that art college didn't quite prepare them for life beyond college. "I think it's in the nature of things that one's student years are more idealistic, and less realistic, and that on graduation, the balance abruptly shifts in the other direction. But that's not to say that you shouldn't try to provide a mixture of realism imbued with idealism that will stand to students in facing the challenges they are going to meet."

Despite the considerable progress that has been made with the Thomas Street campus, space remains a problem, perhaps the biggest problem, for the college. "The question of physical space is one that has to be addressed imaginatively. The provision of workshop and personal space is absolutely central to the functioning of the college. The wisdom of the outgoing board was that the question of space had to be approached strategically, and I'm in the very fortunate position of inheriting this strategic vision. We have acquired the fire station next door, and I'll be devoting some of my energies to realising that."

The college is also working to acquire land to the west to expand the campus further.

"I would say - and I hope this isn't misplaced optimism - that the immediate question of land acquisition can be resolved in a matter of months rather than years. But the strategic plan is to double the working space of the college, and that obviously won't happen during my term here."

He acknowledges that the current economic climate presents particular problems, but says there is no question of capping admissions. "But looking for increased resources, or seeking funds from private sources are not easy tasks at the moment."

The NCAD has attached increasing importance to addressing its immediate community context, and there is now, as Ó Briain notes, a community-arts module open to fine-art students. "The education faculty has started a higher diploma in community arts, and it's important that the college engages with the community. I'm aware that our face onto Thomas Street can be seen as intimidating, and I would hope that will improve in the coming years."

He makes the point that the college has had to address not only community in that sense but various communities, the wider, national community, the industrial and the international fine-art communities.

"If you look at the pace of change in the arts and in design - and change in design is often driven by technological developments - it's clear that it all places formidable demands on the staff.

They have to respond and anticipate. In most areas, it's virtually impossible just to repeat last year's course and here I think it's good that so many are practitioners. It keeps them in touch with developments.

"One of the things that attracted me to the NCAD was my memory of conversations with some of the part-time lecturers here, the way they spoke of their excitement about the process, their positive views of interaction with students. I think that quality of engagement is invaluable - and inspiring."