SHELTER
> a critical response to an unresponsive crisis
The project concept: seizing and occupying a bus shelter at night time outside of hours of operation and thus utilizing otherwise wasted space for its intended/unintended purpose.
Questions: how do you isolate when you're homeless? how can a bus shelter cost 100,000 Euro when there are thousands of people without a roof over their head? How absurd is this crisis going to get?
Format: Intervention through performance, video and photo materials, online presence, ongoing events in bus shelters across Dublin, interaction with people affected by homelessness and agencies working to fight homelessness
rehearsal night notes - testing props, seeing what decorations are effective at creating a homely feel, spotting technical issues and missing elements. The essentials tested include fake plants, colour-changing battery operated lamp, a curtain and a hammock. Details - alarm clock, Vogue, pictures, mirror and certificates on 'wall'. To be added: rugs, small table and chair, shelves, more wall decor and curtains, more lamps, front side cover, teapot, biscuits, speaker with music, pillows. Issues: rope to affix hammock, shelves to place decorations, glass cleaner to make fittings stick (non destructive fixes - magnets, blu tac, velcro),
Garda van passed, they looked but didnt turn to interfere, bus driver somewhat puzzled but no comment, no passengers around, occupied between 3am and 6am on a Wednesday, ca 30 minutes to arrange and less than 5 minutes to vacate, recording on action cam and two phones.
Main event to be recorded as: full recording on camera, timelapse on phone, dji osmo 2 for movement/interactions, one phone for live stream, another two phones to cover different angles. Will need power banks, possibly power inverter for car
Undecided on format - photographs of space for sure, performance initiating interaction (order pizza) duration unclear depends on temperature/encounters/response from public.
Still to develop - set of ad posters mocking agencies culpable for housing crisis severity, daft ads printouts, printouts of co-living utopia of prev. housing minister, recommendation to pay rent from susi by minister, dcc propaganda as the organizer of this shelter solution etc.
Shelter rehearsal night video 19.1.2021 Cabra, Dublin 7
A year of contemplation and research
Interrupted by the Covid19 pandemic the original concept aimed solely at the homelessness crisis morphed into a piece about the pressing issues of both the crisis and the hardship of enduring the pandemic on the street. The Housing Minister's darling project of co-living was equally absurd as the shelter serving as a home. The see through structure of the shelter was immediately reminiscent of an ICU unit. I see you, you see me and yet we are so far apart - The isolation as a homeless person on the street, the isolation of the virus affected individual inside. The banned outcast, the banned sick; amid crowds but in fact abandoned.
first idea visualisations from a year ago
first visual notes on props from a year ago
considering possibilities and potential of the bus shelter
recent sketches of camera setups and props
Banned from campus by Covid19 and missing the workshop - a small metal model of the shelter made to practice wood- and metal work skills
The likeminded: sources that informed the project
And finally: the original trigger
