• MFA in Fine Art

Andrej Getman

Hiding in plain site

74-76, St Anthony's Road, Rialto, Dublin 8

‘And if those walls could talk, would they scream of neglect, red tape, bureaucracy, inept government ministers, families in hotel rooms and children eating their dinner off cardboard trays on the street?’

Here stands an apartment block right on my doorstep, which has been sitting empty for the last few years.

Unacceptable, considering that we are in the middle of a housing crisis during a global pandemic.

Originally built ten years ago, to serve, employ and regenerate a local community, it is sandwiched between traditional Dublin red brick houses and the new construction of the National Children’s Hospital at the St. James's Hospital site.

Neglected and forgotten in time, this empty apartment block represents political negligence. By not fulfilling its purpose, the building becomes a ghostly brick monument – ‘a thing’, an unmovable object; an immoral blot on the local urban landscape, an inner-city mirage.

I am a Dublin based artist of Lithuanian heritage, influenced by my immediate environment; the inner city Dublin landscape. I’m interested in colour or the ‘absence’ of it – in everyday life.