Student project. The challenge was to increase awareness of Dublin’s history and culture among the general population thereby increasing engagement with the city, improving the perception of the city as a place to live and increasing the sense of ownership of the city for those who live here.
My solution was an ongoing project: We Make Dublin. The aim is to celebrate the history and culture of Dublin by making it visible, within a space where people can stop, look and reflect. The lanes of Dublin were chosen as a starting point, because they have a rich history and many stories associated with them, but these are in danger of being lost (as some of the lanes themselves already are, the victim of development over the years). The lanes can also be seen as a ‘third space’ within the public realm: accessible, easy to encounter without going out of the way, while also being a sort of ‘hidden’ place known more to locals than tourists. Another aim of the project is to bring art and culture into people’s everyday lives, something they encounter as part of normal life. To help make culture, art and history more accessible to the general public so that ultimately they will engage more with all that Dublin has to offer in this space.
The project works by gathering stories about the lanes from the public through a dedicated website. The walls of the lanes are painted with a symbol or icon, based on the history of that place.
The design is based on making the hidden visible. The style references the dazzle ships camouflage, used in WWI to distort the outline and flatten the shapes of the ships. In the context of this project, the dazzle camouflage would be used to attract attention rather than hide. Dazzle was based on the work of vorticists who aimed to create art that expressed the dynamism of the modern world through angular and hard edged lines and shapes. The icons designed for each lane are based on their history but are not immediately obvious on first look. They also include some elements of ‘impossible shapes’ so that the viewer stops to look and engage with it.
The paint will fade eventually, and as new stories are uncovered from the public’s contributions, new designs will be painted up in place of the previous one. In this way the project is an ongoing living interaction, constantly changing over time, with a permanent record held on the website. The initial project is based on four lanes in Dublin (Dame Lane, Crane Lane, Dame Court, St Andrews Lane), with the aim of continuing around the city based on suggestions from the public.
Limited edition booklets are printed featuring each symbol and the stories that inspired it, along with a map of the particular location and further information. Posters featuring deconstructions of the symbols obscuring photos of these lanes would be placed around the city to attract attention to the lanes and the website.
