Artwork Creation Project

For #DouglassWeek, national and international artists are invited to collaborate to create complementary artworks and public street art in Ireland and the US. In this fittingly transatlantic effort, artists will work individually, in tandem or within an artist groups in order to commemorate the great abolitionist’s work, words and time in Ireland. This initiative will add to the already existent cultural output that celebrates Douglass and his legacy in Ireland: from Kevin O’Brien’s 2020 Douglass mural, located at an electrical box on Grand Parade, to collaborative street art curated by fresh voices from the Cork Migrant Centre around Cork to new murals in Belfast and Dublin and artistic efforts in other cities around the country. The artworks that emerge from this project will continue to showcase the increasingly diverse nature of Ireland, as well as the historical and contemporary importance of Douglass to Ireland more broadly. To allow for a variety of creative approaches and incorporation of the wide scope of topics, artwork can also focus on commemorating or reflecting on Douglass and three other prominent Irish and American figures:

John Hume, Daniel O’Connell and John Lewis.

Shedding light on the importance of how we use public space in the context of #Douglassweek, this creative commemoration will also educate new audiences about the petition, led by researchers of University College Cork, to rename a public space after Douglass. The process of creating the artworks will be documented and experienced by viewers across the globe during #DouglassWeek. For example, a street art walking tour has been commissioned to highlight the existing and newly created artwork in cities around Ireland.