Gallery of life in a Kerry village

A community art project in Sneem, Co Kerry, had residents hands-on for a collaboration in which their opinions on various subjects have been turned into an art work by Jochen Gerz.

The locally-based artist photographed 40 locals and asked them what their three wishes would be for the local ghost estate, Ireland and Europe. The resulting imagery and texts are displayed between the north and south squares, creating a 24-hour gallery in the village.

Gerz, who is internationally known for his collaborative works on memory, has lived in Sneem for six years and enjoys the village life. It’s a big change from Paris where he lived most of his life or his native Berlin. “It is challenging,” he admits, “living in a village. They know much more about you than in the city. They want to know and are almost entitled to know, so you cannot hide behind anonymity.”

Gerz has turned the tables on his community, interviewing them and showing the response in the public areas of the town, offering a new cultural layer. “My idea is to make the contact with people who come to visit,” he says. “They come on tour buses, cars and more and more often bikes, to the village. The village is very small and the project is to deepen and enlarge the encounter with the people who are in the village, to make this encounter more cultural, demanding and complex. To reveal what the people think, what kind of emotions do they have about themselves? About the visitors? About the country? About Europe?”

The Tidy Towns initiative was one of the inspirations for Gerz who wanted to reveal a more realistic picture of Sneem, to “build on the traditional offerings of Aran sweaters and ice-cream”. Allowing an insight into the mind-set of the inhabitants and offering “food for the mind and food for the emotions”.

This is the second artistic engagement Gerz has run in Sneem. The first involved a fun but serious reflection on the legacy of the Celtic Tiger. In Cul Fadda, the local ghost estate, local children painted murals in the windows depicting scenarios about what the Tiger may be up to post boom. This was a huge success and gave the population an appetite for art engagements. Cul Fadda went on to become the first estate sold by Nama.

“Here in Paradise is to give more confidence to the normal people,” says Gerz. “I think the local people are proud that there can be so many opinions and so much thoughtful things put out there in the public space.”

“I wanted to have a cross section of society as it is. Different opinions, different priorities and to show Sneem is a small place with a big society.”

Gerz sat down with every participant and wrote down their response to his questions. The 40 portraits were shot by Peter Zoeller, a well-known Kerry-based photographer.

Gerz was very surprised how many people chose to address the question on Europe and interested in their deep understanding of what is going on at a European level.

“The people,” he says, “are not as local as it seems!”

- Here in Paradise runs in Sneem, Co Kerry, until September 18.

- The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin will host a symposium on the work of Jochen Gerz on November 14-15.