A community street art project created by local teenagers was today unveiled in Dublin’s north inner city.
A group of five teenagers ranging in age from 13 to 19 joined Dublin-based artist Alan Mongey to design and paint a mural on walls covering a Luas cross city worksite on Marlborough Street, Dublin 1.
The mural consists of a series of 44 panels measuring 2.4m (8ft) high and stretching over 45m (150ft) in total. It is based on the theme ‘Movement in Time’ and depicts the development of Dublin city’s transport network through the centuries. The timeline starts at the Viking invasion of Dublin and continues to the present day.
Mr Mongey worked with students from the nearby After Schools Education and Support Programme on the mural’s design and execution, but he gave the young artists all the credit. “I was just a work mule, lugging stuff around so it would be there and ready for them to use,” he said.
Nicole Nugent (19), a graphic design student at Marino College, came up with the concept of blending images of old and new Dublin. “The Luas is something new, it’s new technology, so we wanted to show the difference between where we are now and where we came from,” she said.
Ms Nugent and her fellow artists Elle O’Reilly (13), Casey Nugent (16) and Robert McCann (16) were commended for their work at an unveiling ceremony today. Nathan Barrett, who also worked on the project, was unable to attend.
The mural took three weeks to research and design and six weeks to paint. Although organisers reported some “teenagery” behaviour like arriving late, working late and demanding pizza, the dedicated teens “gave up their whole summer” to complete the project, Mr Mongey said.
Well known Irish artist Robert Ballagh, who advised the project's organisers, has done street art with local teens in the past. He said the mural is "enormously empowering" for the young people involved.
“Let’s not deny that a lot of young people, particularly in deprived underprivileged areas are told all the time that they’ll never amount to anything. Getting involved in a project like this and successfully completing it is a wonderful lesson that they can achieve things. If there was more of that going on, I think we’d have a lot more optimism in the country,” he said.
The mural will stay up until the Luas Cross City opens.
The project was a collaboration between the Luas, Irish Life and the Dublin City Council Arts Office.