with Fiona Kelly and Maaike Mijland

January - July 2019

Various locations
Cobh, Co. Cork, Republic of Ireland

The Vacant Building Appreciation Society is a community support organisation that recognises vacant buildings as receptacles of dreams - dreams of safety, of place, of purpose and vocation, of ways of habitation, of lives and living.

In early 2019, the society generated a lively town discussion by posting images and locations of vacant sites around Cobh on-line and in an "agency" shop window. They then invited new membership through the submission of dreams for the sites, which were then published on-line, at the Sirius Arts Centre and through QR code-bearing society building tags.

As an antidote to the despair often associated with the disused buildings, the resulting collective vision was bouyant, imaginative, considered and purposeful, balancing humour with genuine ideas for change - and forming a basis for Fiona Kelly's thoughtful and expansive tour of the town centre.

An archive of Cobh's vacant sites and submitted dream are available on https://vacantbuildings.ie/.

Vacant Buildings Appreciation Society was a part of See You Tomorrow, a series of collaborative projects prototyping collective future visions for the town of Cobh.

This project has been assisted by the Australian and Queensland Governments through the Australia Council for the Arts and Arts Queensland, their respective arts funding and advisory bodies, and by Cork County Council’s Creative Communities Award.