Amaptocare

As part of the Ballymun Renewal Scheme, which had a planned public sector spend of hundreds of millions of euro, and total plans exceeding 2.5 billion euro,[1] a combined percent for art programme was deployed through the Breaking Ground arts organisation established under the oversight of Dublin City Council's Ballymun Regeneration Limited.[2] Breaking Ground sponsored a range of artworks, but also advertised by open call, in 2002, for a major project. Ultimately, two options were considered: a sculpture by American public artist Jeff Koons, whose works already commanded high prices but some of which were seen as "draws" or tourist attractions, or a particpatory public artwork by conceptual artist Jochen Gerz.[3] Gerz, German-born, Paris-resident, and with dozens of public and participative art projects completed, had visited Ballymun in 2002, and had noticed the lack of trees, commenting "My first reaction was, this is a 'no-fly zone' for birds. It's very mineral, very planned, very geometrical. There is very little organic confidence, as if everybody needed to be planned, as if life could not happen in confidence." After further reading in Irish mythology, in which he noted the prominence of trees and woods, he put tree planting at the centre of his project proposal. He further explained the he saw "the trees as breaking up the public and civic space of Ballymun", which he feared would otherwise be streamlined and anodyne, and that "It's nice to interrupt a little bit the monotony of the computer drawings."[4][5]

The Gerz proposal was selected, and proceeded as the largest,[6] and one of the two highest-funded, Ballymun arts projects,[7] with a budget described as exceeding 250,000 euro,[lower-alpha 1] and a duration from December 2003 to December 2017.[8] While some arts-related construction projects have cost much more, amaptocare has even been described as Ireland's largest arts project.[9] amaptocare was commissioned in late 2003 by Aisling Prior, the director of Breaking Ground, who also acted as producer,[10] and was named amaptocare, derived from "a map to care". The project manager, also working as producer, was Sheena Barrett.[8] The artist moved with his wife to Sneem, County Kerry[8] while overseeing amaptocare.[11]

Arts correspondents and artists commented:

Gerz has inversed [sic] the idea of imposed 'gifts' of social housing, institutional urbanism and cultural artefacts, which tends to view the residents as cultural and social recipients and contributes to the cycle of patriarchal bureaucracy, art for public places and ungrateful vandalism. Instead, Gerz invited the population of Ballymun to donate, to contribute by paying for their own environment.

— Jeremy Hunt (art critic), The Ozymandias Principle, in Curating the Local: Some Approaches to Practice and Technique, Torres Vedras, 2005 (2007): Transforma ac, (ed. Gabriela Vaz-Pinheiro)

In this work, Gerz inverted the relationship between social welfare recipients and public sponsors ... residents of a suburb that for decades had only been a bad news story were now becoming sponsors, and as it were, narrators of their own history. .. Gerz calls its unsuspecting authors the "new elites" .. The amaptocare project is characterized by its many layers, its polyphony, and also by atypical social cohesion. The outcome is a plural sculpture that has changed the atmosphere within the imposed rehousing scheme, which may explain why the donated trees have been less vandalized than others planted as part of the regeneration project.

— Marion Hohlfeldt, Public Authorship as a Multitude of Voices (pp. 103-116), The Art of the Multitude: Jochen Gerz – Participation and the European Experience, Frankfurt and New York, 2016: Campus Verlag, (eds. Jonathan Vickery and Mechtild Manus)

and a local artist involved in the scheme, John Duffy, described it as "providing a space for the donor, offering a way in which they can make a mark for themselves." and referred to one sponsor's perception of the work as "the provision of a second chance for her life in Ballymun. With the physical and emotional changes that are happening to her life, she can mark them with her words on the lectern for her tree.", emphasising the "power of the project in the texts and the .. individuals and groups involved in the articulation of those words."[19]

While describing the artist as an "impressive figure" and "tireless negotiator" the Irish Times reported in late 2004 that there was some adverse comment about the project.[7] One criticism was about the requirement for a donation, but the artist explained that he wanted a feeling of ownership, as opposed to impersonal municipal planting.[15] and said "that it could be possible that a work of art would not suffer from the presence of the people but, on the contrary, it would get better with the presence of the people." and that "The project is 'a little practical study of democracy'." A research project by Peter Dowie on arts projects and the Ballymun schemes also received some negative commentary about amaptocare, even "community animosity", with one community development worker at the Ballymun Partnership describing it as "...an arrogant proposal .. an extremely ambitious project .. very expensive with no room for evaluation .. and impractical within an area going through regeneration.", an artistic director and activist referring to "patronisation of the community", and the researcher summarising some local reactions with: "The idea was that ownership of the tree would be both an inducement to, and a symbol of, their new commitment to caring for their area. Resentment toward the project stemmed from the fact it was perceived as patronizing and misunderstood the level at which residents had always demonstrated their ‘caring’ and sense of responsibility during 3 decades of civic neglect. The act of purchase also became a problem. It suggested further civic disrespect in charging residents living on social welfare for what would be given free in wealthier areas of Dublin",[13] although in fact there was also municipally-fully funded tree planting during the area's regeneration.[8]