Dublin art on the streets

I really love street art for a simple reason: it's one of the most democratic forms of art we have in this world, from both the artists and the public point of view.
As for the artists, they don't have to pay a rent for a studio where to work, nor for a gallery where to exhibit their works. This means that street art is accessible to all artists, regardless of their social and economic status.
As for the public, they don't have to pay a ticket and make long queues to see the works. Above all, everybody can usually understand the works, not just those with certain types of educational backgrounds.
In Dublin there are a lot of murals here and there, mostly in the Liberties and in Temple Bar. As for the last one, I would like to suggest that you take a look at the Icon Walk, a multi-street public art installation, which was created in 2010 by the Icon Factory, an artists co-operative that works to produce original images of a wide range of irish cultural figures or icons. Most of artists' works can be found at the Icon Factory Gallery, 3 Aston Place (Temple Bar).

All the murals I've seen in Dublin are in color. I converted to black and white the pics taken at the Icon Walk in order to express my feelings about the great work the artists and the volunteers are doing. This is my way to say "thank you and good luck to all of you".

Bloomsday on the wall

There are many ways to celebrate Bloomsday, the day on which Joyce's Ulysses takes place. You can dress up like like characters from the book, you can go to Sweny's, where Bloom bought the famous lemon soap, you can have a Bloomsday breakfast, you can do a tour of the places mentioned in the Ulysses or… you can paint a graffiti on a wall, in honor of the the great Irish writer. This is exactly what Kevin and Oner (artists of the Icon Factory) did at the Icon Walk in Temple Bar.

I spent some time with them, following their painting and writing from the very beginning and I may say that it was a great art performance, a really nice way to celebrate Bloomsday.

Living like chickens in a cage of emptiness

Some murals painted on the walls inside the public housing block named Melara (Trieste) clearly describe the feelings of desolation, loneliness, abandonment that you feel when you walk along the never-ending corridor of a prison-like structure, where 2500 humans live like chickens in a cage. Even when you meet people here and there you feel oppressed by the shadow of emptiness which hangs over you all the time.

Although it's just 6 km far from town centre, the low-income neighborhood is a world apart. This is not due to the people living there, but to the conditions in which they have to live, thanks to the architectural and social aberrations brought forth by politicians and architects who believed (and believe) that it's better to gather "the poor" in a single area and keep them out of sight.

Melara is just an example of modern (anti)social conceptions. And is not the most dramatic one. Take a look at Brian Bassey's pics showing people in Hong Kong forced to live in cages measuring just 6ft by 2 1/2ft.

That's all.