Video Installation, Site Specific in Dublin North Inner-city community
I wanted my work for Inner Art to have the following criteria;
That it would genuinely be in a public place not an art gallery or art centre.
That people would have easy access to it.
That it would show the style and finesse of the people from the area
That it would include people of all ages and opinions
That it would combat the negative stereotyping of the people from the north inner city of Dublin.
This was a project made with the community in North inner-city Dublin. It was commissioned by The Firestation Artist Studios for the Inner Art incentive in 1991. The work was made over four weeks and involved video interviews with young people who were battling drug addiction while also being supported with jobs programmes and other coping structures. I interviewed the parents of these young persons and their neighbors in the community. They tell us about their neighborhood and what resources are needed. Everyone spoke straight to camera. The edited video was shown in two confession boxes in a local church. This gave us a safe, darkened, quiet area to access the installation. I wanted to show how important it was to meet a wide variety of people who lived nearby and to listen to them. Children told us that they needed a local secondary school, older people told us how were proud they were of their homes and of the history of the area.
The audience knelt and watched the work within the confession box to hear the local community speak to us in the place of the priest. In Catholic teaching the priest represents God and it was important to put the voice of the people in that place, we called the installation In Loco Dei, In God’s Place.
It was important to me that the clergy who were in charge of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish church were liberation Theologians, who believe in the rights of the poor.*
(*Liberation theology’s main focus is the plight of the poor in a world of plenty, the oppression of indigenous peoples and the oppression of women).