New Pride-inspired street-art mural unveiled at Tara Street Station
21 Meitheamh 2023
Iarnród Éireann has unveiled a new street-art mural at Dublin’s Tara Street Station, to mark Pride 2023.
The bright, striking artwork by Dublin-based French visual artist Claire Prouvost spans 65 square-metres of arches in a section of wall on the southbound platform of the station.
Inspired by the cubist movement, Claire’s art celebrates diversity, love and everyday life in a colourful, bold and minimal style. Her work at Tara Street represents the diversity of all who pass through the station, and how love can bring colour and life back into a space. It celebrates the message of Pride in a very visual way, including human interactions and the symbols and colours of LGBTQIA+ community.
As the latest installation under Iarnród Éireann’s Station Art Programme, the work will be a long term feature at the station for customers to enjoy. QR codes will be installed to allow further interaction with the artwork, and to help customers learn more about the project and the themes it explores.
Iarnród Éireann’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Executive Samuel Riggs said“We’re so excited to partner with Claire Prouvost on this beautiful mural, created to celebrate Pride 2023. As well as providing a bit of extra love to Tara Street Station, this mural reaffirms our commitment to supporting the LGBTQIA+ community – both customers and colleagues – and creating a service where everyone is welcome onboard"
It was important to us that this mural not only create a space that we can all enjoy and be proud of, but also represent communities that often go unrepresented. Claire was as passionate about this as we are, and has woven a number of important messages and identities into the piece.
We sincerely hope that everyone can enjoy this artwork as they travel through Tara Street, and we want to wish everyone a happy Pride!”
The work at Tara Street follows 2022’s Pride-themed DART, in which a carriage on their fleet were transformed with the message “Travel with Pride, let’s keep moving forward,” and which continues to greet DART customers daily one year on.
Claire Prouvost is a French visual artist based in Dublin said: "I was really excited to work with Irish Rail on this project, to bring some colours to that part of the station, while highlighting such an important message of love and inclusivity. We wanted to integrate as many symbols as possible to the artwork, in order to highlight and inform the public about the diversity of groups under the LGBTQIA+ community. The Tara street station being an incredibly busy part of the city, I wanted to give people traveling on the network a glimpse of the diversity of scenes and people we see everyday. A kiss to say hello or goodbye to a loved one, friends hanging out, a hug, some conversations. It’s all about representing as many individuals as possible with their very own features and celebrating our uniqueness, while sharing a message of love that will stay beyond Pride month"