Art in an abandoned space

In Sneem, Co Kerry, a ghost estate has been given a makeover, thanks to almost 60 of the town’s schoolchildren, in an exhibition that asks where the Tiger has gone

THE RING of Kerry has its share of eyesores, but few have captivated tourists as much this summer as the imaginative redecoration of an uninhabited “ghost estate” of holiday homes on the road into the picturesque village of Sneem.

Billed as The Eyesore Show: Where has the Tiger gone? and officially opened by Minister for Arts and Heritage Jimmy Deenihan, this unusual project involved covering the windows of vacant houses on the Cúl Fadda estate with paintings by schoolchildren.

Berlin-born artist Jochen Gerz, whose studio is in nearby Derryquin, put the idea to the Sneem Tidy Towns Committee. With some 2,000 ghost estates around Ireland, “this project looks at ways we might make them easier to look at,” he said.

The tidy towns committee had been worried about criticism from judges of the annual competition that the image of Sneem was being damaged by unfinished housing schemes, jeopardising its chances of winning the national award, which it last won in 1987.

Nearly 60 schoolchildren from Pobalscoil Inbhear Scéine in Kenmare were recruited to paint the pictures, all loosely based on the death of the “Celtic Tiger”, and the whole lot was then turned into an outdoor art exhibition on the abandoned Cúl Fadda estate.

Co-ordinated by art teacher Joe Thoma, The Eyesore Show is an antidote to abandonment and shows what could be done – at least temporarily – with unfinished housing projects that fell victim to the property crash and are now in the clutches of Nama.

The Sneem Tidy Towns Committee is delighted by the public response. “It’s true that children cannot fill the empty houses with life or make them disappear. But can we? Are they going to stay forever? The kids only ask: ‘Where has the Tiger gone?’ Do you know the answer?”

Architect Niall Scott, who has had a house in Sneem for many years, said the Cúl Fadda estate “blights the approach to this beautiful village”. But instead of “moaning about how awful everything is, the committee has tried to do something about it.”

Sneem’s “very imaginative initiative,” as he described it, is a more artistic response to the problem of festering ghost estates. But then, The Eyesore Show continues an art tradition in the village, which has had contemporary sculptures in its squares for many years.

Elsewhere, “guerrilla gardening” has been undertaken to improve the appearance of ghost estates around the country. Last March, volunteers led by Serena Brabazon planted 1,000 saplings of native trees amid the rubble and wasteland of the Waterways estate in Keshcarrigan, Co Leitrim.

Since the Sneem show started, Nama has put the 40 empty and unfinished houses on the market with a guide price of €500,000.

“Not everybody was surprised to see Kilkenny-based developer Robert Day visit Sneem and express interest in the estate,” Jochen Gerz said.

As he observed, “it’s joyful to make a sad thing into something people like to see and, most importantly, discuss”.

The Cúl Fadda outdoor art exhibition continues until the end of August