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The question of ownership of both public artworks and public spaces is central to the work of Jochen Gerz. In Ireland, particularly in an urban environment such as Ballymun, people do not always regard public spaces as their own. “ Democracy can have the disadvantage of being abstract” Gerz has said. Jon Ihle of MAGILL magazine has written “Old Ballymun’s social problems were legion… and rooted in a kind of tragedy of the commons: something notionally owned by everyone is effectively owned by nobody”.
The idea behind amaptocare is to inverse the routine of social housing and institutional urbanism by asking the residents to make a public donation. Speaking to Aidan Dunne of THE IRISH TIMES Irish Times Gerz stated “I wanted to do something that was not about receiving. I wanted to ask people to give something”. Gerz has invited Ballymun residents, as well as people from other areas, to donate a tree of their choice and to have it planted at a site of their own choosing. Each tree donor then meets with the artist and is asked the question “If this tree could speak, what should it say for you?” The donor’s response is printed on a lectern planted at the foot of each tree.
Contributor Brendan Murray says “ I am here to stay. It is my tree, although I donated it. It’s mine, although as I share what I donate, it is for everybody. This tree marries me to this place. It is a sign of a renewal of my hope.” The names of all donors are to be engraved on the granite pavement of the new Civic Plaza, at the centre of which a glass map of the new Ballymun will be installed. The map will be illuminated by a series of bright lights, each marking the site of a donated tree.
Gerz sees the trees as breaking up the public and civic space of Ballymun, which he fears will otherwise be streamlined and anodyne. Speaking to Colin Murphy in the VILLAGE, Gerz has said “What I am proud of is to contribute to the democracy, to the authorship of people…Public space should not only be “walk” “don’t walk”...It can be more personal more contradictory. It’s nice to interrupt a little bit the monotony of the computer drawings”.
Planting of the amaptocare trees was officially launched by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O’Donoghue on the 9th of November 2006. In total over 600 people have donated trees for the amaptocare project. Jon Ihle of MAGILL magazine has written “For the first time in Ballymun’s history a significant part of the built fabric will have been designed not by a Government Goliath but by what American political commentator Glenn Reynolds calls an army of Davids”.
www.gerz.fr
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