Creating a conversation through thought-provoking street art

Joe Caslin, artist and teacher at Tullamore College, is central to a special campaign this week focusing on the mental health of young people.

The initiative is being run by RTE, who throughout the week have aimed to get a conversation going on issues faced by young people today. RTE contacted Joe three months ago to create a piece of thought-provoking art around the topic.

The result was a giant three-storey-tall mural drawn by Joe, depicting a pensive young man in a hoodie, installed on the RTE campus in Dublin and facing onto the Stillorgan Road.
Joe has since spoken out about his own personal challenges in teaching, as since first stepping into the classroom he has seen five young people die by suicide.

“The image went up last week, there was no explanation as to why it was there initially, as it was intended to be thought provoking and to get a conversation going. Then we released a short film with it so people could understand what it was all about,” he tells the Offaly Independent.

“Losing those children breaks you as a person. Teaching can be a strange role, you have to be a friend one minute, a role model the next, a teacher, and when you lose someone in the classroom it’s like losing a family member. It’s very traumatic because all of those lives had huge futures in front of them.

“The drawing is a perfect way to engage people in that conversation - that something needs to be done. And with the short accompanying film, it allowed it flow into the media we all use today, such as our mobile phones. We really wanted to hit our intended target audience and I think we have achieved that.”

Joe also appeared RTE One Prime Time dicussion last night, Thursday, following a one-hour long documentary called The Big Picture - Young and Troubled, which highlights the reality of mental health issues among Ireland’s young people.

Joe explains how he has used his art as a form of therapy.

“Firstly I build up a relationship with the person in the drawing and that can start months before anything goes on the canvas. A drawing can take anything up to one to three weeks to complete, before an installation period of about a day.

“I’ve always drawn since I was a child. It has helped me to deal with trauma in my own life. And I always try and use it for something positive and for good. With this drawing I intended it to be used to provoke conversation, to evoke empathy, and that can only be a good thing”

He says that both his teaching, and his drawing, informs the other.

“Both influence the other. The conversations that start in the classroom inform my drawing, and by being an artist I think I am a better teacher for it. One couldn’t exist without the other. I love being inside the classroom, it’s one of the most rewarding and important jobs there is because you get to help shape someone’s life.”

Joe is currently working on another project relating to direct provision in Ireland.

“I see kids who have been here since they were two years old. Ireland for them is their only home, they know nowhere else and yet our government wants to ship them back to where they came from. It’s heartbreaking, it really is. So that project will be happening in summer and hopefully we can get a conversation going about that also.”

Caslin has previously worked with charities such as Pieta House, which aims to raise awareness about mental health. 

He is also the artist behind the well-known mural of two men embracing, ‘The Embrace’, which was placed on the side of a Dublin building in the lead up to the same-sex marriage referendum.