March 24, 2014

If you have been strolling around Grand Canal Dock of late you may have noticed the giant portrait of a young man on Hanover Quay. A group of hooded young men staring down from a wall tends to make passersby feel uneasy, but an art teacher in Tullamore, Co Offaly is trying to change such perceptions and make people think more reflectively about young men in Ireland today.

Our Nation’s Sons is a project by art teacher and illustrator Joe Caslin in conjunction with local youngsters, and this year they are erecting huge portraits of young men across Ireland. “Being a teacher, you see these kids day in, day out. So you’re at the coalface really. You see them walk through your door into the classroom, and for a lot of them it’s not really a great place to be the last five or six years.

The portraits have been interpreted as a commentary on the social isolation of young men, issues surrounding suicide, how society perceives young men as a menace, and more. New figures published by the European Child Safety Alliance yesterday showed Ireland has the highest rate of suicide among young women in Europe, and the second highest rate among young men.

The rate of suicide among men aged up to 19 is 2½ times that of women of the same age. Despite these figures, there is no national strategy for the prevention of suicide or self-harm in Ireland.

“Instead of going home and playing PlayStation for six hours, and killing 96 lads in a game, this is that they’re doing something positive in their community. I recruit a bunch of lads from the area, then we do the drawings and when the drawings are ready, we blow them up massive. And then the kids are part of the work, so they’re part of an apprenticeship.”

Caslin films his projects and makes sure that the young men are involved in that process. “They might be working with the director, or with the sound engineer. I don’t just go up and stick up a picture. It’s more of a legacy thing.”

This summer, he is hoping to activate the project across several Irish locations. “It could have been a small project, but we’re putting up stuff in Dublin, Limerick, Waterford, Cork, Galway, Belfast. It’ll be a six-city project. We’re trying to get six cities during the summer and get stuff up, so every corner of Ireland will be able to reflect on it.”

The latest portrait is on the gable wall of developer Harry Crosbie’s house in Grand Canal Dock. Caslin financed the project himself until receiving an award from the Arthur Guinness Projects fund last year, allowing him to expand.

“But these kids are willing to engage. I went into the school in Pearse Street and explained to the principal what I was doing. The school said ‘fair play to you, if you can get them to do it, go ahead’. And every single one of those kids who is involved is completely involved. They’re actively turning up.”

This is a fantastic project to change community perceptions are we are delighted to have a piece of it in our very own Grand Canal Dock. See more on http://joecaslin.com/