Post Celtic Tiger-Dublin has become an interesting place. All the independent quirkiness and creative energy that I had missed when I came here for the first time in 2006 has finally started to show, now that the money is gone and the shiny office buildings start to rot. We have Steampunk flea markets, Chinese film festivals, and more music then ever before flowing from every corner of the city. Art in general is more present, in the public mind and the public space. One initiative who puts art even more into the public focus, and, even more important puts it on the streets, are the good guys of the Upstart collective. What they did (and are still doing) is simply putting up pieces of art instead of election posters during the current election campaign.

UpStart is a non-profit arts collective which aims to put creativity at the centre of public consciousness during the Irish General Election Campaign in 2011. We plan to do this by reinterpreting the spaces commonly used for displaying election campaign posters in Dublin City.

Image by UnkieDave

And they do with that with great success. I thoroughly enjoy gazing at and reading an Upstart-piece whenever I see one. And not only because they accepted a text of mine – there truly are great submitted pieces among the works they displayed hanging over and next to all those bleak “Vote 1 Enda XXX”-posters all over the city. Way to go, Upstart!

You can also donate to aid their initiative. Please do!

As stated above, they also accepted a humble submission by yours truly. It’s a small text/poem/whatchamacallit that I named “Cities”. I’ve added it below, if you’ve seen it displayed somewhere in town and you liked it, let me know.

Cities

People make cities. People who are crying, puking, laughing, dying, loving, snoring, eating, sleeping, dreaming. Not grey and dull buildings, two hundred years old. Tiny things make cities. Tiny things like words. Words people use to describe their city to others. People should speak. This makes a city.