The painting of Dublin’s traffic signal boxes has arguably been one of the most popular and successful moves to turn drab and functional electrical pillars dotted around the capital into something bright and interesting. And now Dublin Canvas, the body in charge of the project, is asking artists to submit new designs as another 50 boxes will get a lick of paint over the next few months.
Easily spotted all over Dublin, and stretching as far away from the city centre as Ballymun and Terenure, Dublin Canvas has not yet revealed where the soon-to-be dolled up traffic boxes are located. It is expected that they will cover Dublin Central, Dublin North Central, Dublin North, and Dublin South East.
First launched in the summer of 2015 as a widespread project following a successful pilot scheme organised by Dublin City Council, Dublin Canvas worked with a wide variety of artists, amateur and professional, to create the unique and disparate artworks.
The current location of the painted traffic signal boxes around Dublin city and its suburbs [Dublin Canvas]
While the revamped traffic signal boxes were met with general acclaim in 2015, some of the artworks have been the victim of vandalism and graffiti tagging, but as project coordinator David Murtagh told the Dublin Inquirer, “Some people create and some people like to destroy.”
In order to keep vandals at bay, artist submissions should be mindful of the area where the box will be located.
“Like large areas, you couldn’t have a landscape with a big sky, somebody’s gonna draw something on it, you know,” Murtagh said.
“But generally it’s just colour in the city,” he added.
The closing date for submissions is April 18th, and Dublin Canvas’ guidelines for the boxes can be found here. Future projects in the pipeline for the organisation include large-scale murals or adding a splash of colour to the cast-iron gas networks of the city.
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[H/T: Dublin Inquirer]
