There’s A Protest Exhibition On The Anti-Homeless Canal Fencing
Photo Credit: @greg_snaps
There’s A Protest Exhibition On The Anti-Homeless Canal Fencing
Text: Izzy Copestake
“This fence is racist. This fence is anti homeless. This fence is anti community. This fence will be torn down.”
Last week, Waterways Ireland revealed it has spent €145,000 on removing tents from the canals and erecting fences in their place. At a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government, and Heritage, they confirmed that the high metal fences lining the canals will remain. Operations controller of Waterways Ireland, Éanna Rowe, stated that the fences are there “to protect” people living in tents.
Between 6 and 8 pm yesterday evening, approximately 40 multidisciplinary artists, activists, neighbors, friends, and members of both the local and wider community gathered to hang art on the fences at the canal, creating the protest exhibition titled “Fences are for Horses, not People.” The protest exhibition is between The Barge Pub and Portobello Plaza along the Grand Canal and was organized by Rank & File Collective, a group that combines art and action by representing people who produce art and organize collective action.
In the exhibition’s official statement, they said, “You cannot fence poverty out of existence; you can only attempt to fence those suffering from the consequences of it. We reject this attempt. Fence the vulture funds, the corporate landlords, AirBnb. This is OUR public space and OUR community built on solidarity, compassion, and love, not extraction, exclusion, and exploitation. This fence is racist. This fence is anti-homeless. This fence is anti-community. This fence will be torn down.”
The exhibition, which explicitly opposes the very site it’s built on, is still open to submissions. Rank & File Collective has urged others who oppose the fencing to head down to the canal and hang their art.
Elsewhere on District: €145,000 Has Been Spent On Anti-Encampment Fencing On The Canal
