Tales from the Promised Land is a site-specific exhibition that publicly celebrates and shares a range of diverse and creative artwork created against the backdrop of proposed regeneration plans for St Michael's Estate.

It presents visual stories as a celebration of community life by children, young people, women and men, all living and working in St Michael's Estate for many decades.

Since 1998 the residents have been working towards and waiting for the estate's development; in 2005 the St. Michael's Regeneration Board was formed and by May 2008, the Public Private Partnership process collapsed. As a result, for many residents change seems distant and tangential now.

Tales from the Promised Land is about what you do when the promised changes don't come and about celebrating in the face of that fact. People still continue to live in St Michael's Estate and have their tales to tell, from many perspectives. These tales are the stories of St Michael's Estate. They are not fantasies. They are real. They are tales for the times we live in.

Common Ground is proud and honoured to stand alongside the physical realisation of Tales from the Promised Land. Common Ground, St Michael's Youth Project, the Family Resource Centre and the artists involved have worked tirelessly towards a public manifestation and celebration of these visual stories. Established in July 1999, Common Ground is committed to realising long-term quality artistic engagements between artists and communities. It has emerged as a dynamic arts organisation which forms a set of diverse working relationships in collaboration with both artists and a wide variety of groups across Bluebell, Inchicore and Rialto.

No Ordinary Lives

In November 2007, the Family Resource Centre (FRC) Women's Group together with Phil Keane, FRC project worker, collaborated with Common Ground and photographer Aislinn Delaney to develop two pieces of work. Using 18^th Century costumes and props to explore the differences between the daily lives of women then and now, Blast from the Past emerged as a photographic project. Following on from that, No Ordinary Lives was inspired by the stories of women prisoners and visitors linked with Kilmainham Gaol over the years.

The Women's group is Nicky Fahy, Deirdre Mockler, Adrienne Shortt and Claire Smyth.

Aislinn Delaney completed a BA in Documentary Photography at the University of Wales, Newport and returned to St Michael's Estate in 2007 to work in collaboration with the local Family Resource Centre as well as on her own documentary practice.

Children of Lir

Aislinn Delaney worked in Inchicore as a youth worker in the 1990s with St Michael's Youth Project when the estate was experiencing a heroin epidemic. During that time, Aislinn witnessed how many young teenagers in the project disintegrated in the face of their addiction. In using the Irish Folk Tale of the Children of Lir, this photographic exhibition evokes the idea of a curse as a way of understanding the injustices that created a lost generation in the area. A decade later many people from the area and from that time still struggle with addiction.

The Family Resource Centre, St Michael's Estate, Inchicore was set up in September 1986 by local women who were seriously concerned about drug addiction, poverty and violence in their own community. The Women's Group is a key part of centre's work. In 1991, the centre began collaborating with the Museum of Modern Art and has continuously developed a strong body of creative work including 'Unspoken Truths' and 'Once is Too Much'. This is the first collaboration between the FRC Women's group and Common Ground.

Where Old Blocks Go and The Hoarding Project

In March 2007, St. Michael's Regeneration Board commissioned visual artists Joe Lee and Thomas O Connor - should there be apostrophe here or a fada on the o? to work with the residents of St Michael's Estate to develop a project that would capture and visualise a new and positive future for the area. The project was planned to be a series of photographic installations on the physical hoarding of the St Michael's Estate site while phase two of the regeneration was taking place.

Joe and Thomas worked with local residents and groups in a series of consultations and photography workshops from April to November 2007. A wide range of groups took part in the process: Bulfin Youth Project, from St Michael's Estate: the Youth Project, the Blocks Committee, Traveller Families, the FRC After Schools, Crèche, and Breakfast Club, , and the Children's Group from Inchicore Community Drugs Team.

By May 2008 the Public Private Partnership for the re-development of St Michael's Estate collapsed. Inchicore Community Drug Team is hosting a digital showing of the entire Hoarding Project honouring the contribution and work made by all the individuals and groups.

The section created by the Breakfast Club, Where Old Blocks Go, will also be shown on Block 4 of St Michael's Estate, and represents a small model of the flats placed by participants in a favoured location and photographed by Joe Lee. The participants are Phyllis Bolton, Ann Marie Brennan, Helena Burbridge, Eilish Comerford, John Dempsey, Rita Fagan, Nelly Kinnane, Jo Kennedy, Chrissie Lawless, Rose Martin and Pauline Tunstead.

Joe Lee graduated from NCAD in the 1980s and works as an artist and independent film and video maker. Since the 1990s he has developed an ongoing working relationship with many groups and organisations in the Inchicore area.

Thomas O Connor is a visual artist interested in working collaboratively with people living through changes such as urban regeneration. He has worked in O'Devaney Gardens, Fatima Mansions and Bray.

Recycled Teenagers/Men's Storytelling Project

The Men's Storytelling Project is an initiative of the Family Resource Centre. The project began in 2007 with a series of storytelling workshops facilitated by Bernie Downes and Marion Jameson, FRC Community Development worker. The group are John Demspey (Bruce), John Brophy, James Moles and John Cully (Ace). It ran until July 2008 while the group worked with Joe Lee to produce a recording of songs and stories recalling their memories of Dublin from the 1940s to the 1970s.

The Family Resource Centre is committed to working with senior citizens now housed in Bulfin Court. The Breakfast Club meets every Wednesday in the Family Resource Centre and the Men's group evolved out of that club.

Bernie Downes is an actress, playwright and scriptwriter with 'Fair City'. From 2002 to 2005, she worked with Common Ground and 'We're from the Barn' Drama group in Dolphin House flats complex on a storytelling project that became a script for the play 'Flat's Life'.

Create the Frame

Create the Frame, the third in a series of collaborative projects since 2005 between St Michael's After Schools programme, Common Ground and photographer Darragh Shanahan.

Create the Frame focused on developing the children's technical abilities and understanding of the photography process. By creating their own photographic studio the children focused on their portraiture skills.

In 2007, About Me was an exchange project of visual diaries and letters between the children of St Michael's and children in India and Africa. This project was supported by Suas.

During Stick Stories, 2005-2006 children documented people's lives in their estate and created visual stories that describe living in an imaginary St Michael's.

The After Schools Progamme, Family Resource Centre CDP, St Michael's Estate.

The After Schools programme was started by the Family Resource Centre to support local children to progress through primary school. Children's access to making art has always been an important part of the Family Resource Centre's work. Common Ground and the After Schools are currently collaborating on Music for Me, a canals-wide music programme.

Darragh Shanahan has been a photographer for the past 10 years. He works in the Gallery of Photography in Temple Bar. He has worked with the After Schools club in St Michael's since 2005.

Pimp My Irish Banger

Since 2005, St Michael's Youth Project has collaborated with Common Ground and visual artist Terry Blake.

During 2006, a group of young men, Dean Farrell, Jonathan O'Reilly, Glen Keogh and Ian O'Brien (aged 11 to 13 years of age) and two youth workers, Eric Caffrey and Carol Byrne, from the youth project, were inspired by the TV programme Pimp My Ride as a way of addressing the ongoing issue of joy-riding in the St Michael's Estate area. As a result they purchased car doors and bonnets and the young men individually prepared and customised a series of 12 doors and bonnets.

St Michael's Youth Project was set up in 1986 and delivers high quality professional youth work based on the process of a positive relationship and the principle of voluntary participation. It works with young people aged 10 to 21 years of age. The youth project has a strong tradition of fostering vibrant creative work with young people and artists.

Terry Blake studied in Limerick and NCAD, where he completed his H. Dip. in Community Arts Education. He worked in collaboration with Common Ground and St. Michaels Youth project on a mock-u-mentary in 2005 and on a video project in 2006.