This project aims to bring these buildings back into focus, to make them seen and heard by giving them a voice that echoes and amplifies the experiences of those directly affected by the housing crisis – people looking for a place to call home. They cry for help, showing the urgency and injustice of the situation.

There are no valid reasons for allowing buildings to stay empty and to fall into dereliction while so many people remain without a home. Housing is not a luxury. It is not just a commodity. Housing is a basic human right. We must acknowledge the unfairness of this situation. Things need to change.

* Source: GeoDirectory database established by An Post and Tailte Éireann
** Source: Government of Ireland’s Department of Housing and FOCUS Ireland. Number excludes those “in ‘own-door’ temporary accommodation, domestic violence refuges, asylum seekers, people who are sleeping rough, and the very many who are ‘hidden homeless’ and staying with family or friends in insecure housing”.

This Art Project titled “Don’t let me fall apart” consists in using decorative ceramic tiles like the one we can see on buildings displaying houses’ names or numbers, but instead with messages echoing the voices of those affected by the housing crisis.

Those tiles are placed on derelict and vacant buildings all over the city. Because dereliction has become part of the irish landscape to the point no one sees it, those tiles are made to make those buildings seen again.

An important work of mapping and documenting dereliction and vacancy is part of the project as well. And this website is a mean to gather all the data found during the research process and to document and share all of this public information.

Along with creating the tiles and sticking them on buildings, people willing to share their experiences of the Housing Crisis have been interviewed to explain what it would mean for them if they had the chance to live in one of those empty buildings.