WHAT IS HOME?

This mural in Cork, Ireland is part of the Ardu Street Art festival (http://arducork.ie) featuring Friz, Asbestos, Conor Harrington, and. Shane O’Malley. The giant gable end mural challenges the passerby to think about ‘What is Home?’  Do you have one, is it safe, can you afford it?

Never as a country has our sense of what home means been more at threat than it is today with a crisis in homelessness, housing prices, evictions and soaring rents, immigration and emigration, and a myriad of other social challenges around the home and what it means to all of us.

I painted this figure wearing a cardboard box on his head to start a conversation with the public about what home means to them. As a country we are currently in an existential crisis over housing and our need to put a roof over our heads. There’s a fear and uncertainly about finding a safe space, and the system seems to be stacked in favour of the landlords. The figure wearing the box is me, but a fictional version of myself who’s looking at the world with a naive view point. So each of my masks, or personas is a character that’s asking a different question. In this case ‘What is Home?’

Home isn’t simply about where you were born, it’s where you feel you belong, where you feel safe, where you’re welcomed, where you can come back to and feel accepted, loved and part of a community. We seem to have lost sight of this recently because we’re so concerned about rent, mortgages or even having a home. Painted over 8 days in the sunshine and rain, it was wonderful to speak to so many curious Corkonians about the mural. The support has been amazing from the public and my friends and family here, Cork definitely felt like my home for this week and ever since I’ve painted this wall.