HOMELESSNESS IS POSSIBLY the biggest issue currently facing Irish society.
All last week TheJournal.ie’s homeless series looked at the plight of people without a home from all corners of the country.
Meanwhile, people in Dublin’s south city centre may have noticed something a little bit different about St Stephen’s Green in the last week.
10 photographs taken by Dublin’s homeless community are currently adorning the railings of the Green across from the Shelbourne Hotel.
The novel exhibit is the latest move for the In Sight project. Six months ago the project had its first exhibition at the Powerscourt Town Centre in Dublin which turned out to be a resounding success.
This new display is closer to what the project’s founders Lynsey Browne and Lucy Ryan were thinking of when they first came up with the concept.
“Well we’re calling it In Sight Out because it’s outdoors. We wanted to do something on the streets – it’s fitting as that’s where a lot of photographers spend most of their time,” Lynsey told TheJournal.ie.
The aim is to increase awareness and to get across the photos and the stories from the people who’ve experienced it (homelessness).
Friends Lynsey and Lucy (who first came up with the idea for In Sight about two years ago when discussing ways to raise funds and awareness of Dublin’s homeless problem) pitched the idea for the project on the Green to local businesses (such as the adjacent Shelbourne Hotel and Adams Auctioneers) and with their support the exhibit has come to life.
All photographs were taken by people living on Dublin’s streets – with 45 people capturing images over the course of 12 months. Each of the pictures featured gives the photographer’s name and a brief description of what it was about the subject that caught their attention.
Meanwhile, one of the photos featured, ‘Me, Myself, and I’ taken by Tomasz Lubczynski on Dublin’s Harcourt Street, has been chosen as the front cover of an anthology of Irish writing, Looking at the Stars, with all proceeds from the book’s sale going to the Dublin Simon Community.
“Tomasz was absolutely delighted when we told him, he’s so proud that his photo was to be on the cover,” says Lynsey.
Of the 45 photographers the project has utilised, Tomasz Lubczynski is one of those who has now progressed to his own accommodation.
“Another photographer, Martin Breen, has now got a job through the Simon Community,” says Lynsey. “There are others we haven’t seen recently though.”
The next move for the project will be to try to expand the photo portfolio into “a collection of postcards, Christmas cards, pictoral guidebooks, calendars, that kind of thing” in conjunction with the Simon Community, says Lynsey.
That will be for next year. For now, the photos on the Green are a moving depiction of the human side of this country’s accommodation crisis.
“Every day we hear more news about the escalating crisis – so much so that we risk becoming immune to the human impact of homelessness,” says Lucy.
Art has the power to create deep connections between those living in mainstream society and those on the periphery.
Photos from this project capture humour, sadness, love, fear, excitement, worry and passions – emotions experienced in every walk of life.
You can learn more about In Sight here. All of the photos involved are available for sale with all proceeds going to the Dublin Simon Community.
The In Sight Out exhibition will continue at St Stephen’s Green across from the Shelbourne Hotel until Monday 12 December.
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