The Apology – Multi-Story Act 1 (2020-2022)

The Multi-Story project began in 2020 as a collaboration between artists Fiona Whelan and Feidlim Cannon, and Housing Action Now (HAN). The project engaged housing activists in a unique online collaborative arts process, exploring direct experiences of the housing crisis through visual and performative story-telling. Initially developed as a series of online workshops with HAN members and hosted by the artists, this workshop process explored each activist’s own individual sense of home through multiple creative tasks which evolved into text-based and performative elements. The project explored the potential of digital media to enhance socially engaged collaborative art-making, connecting diverse groups of housing activists in Ireland.

In 2022, Multi Story Act I: The Apology was launched at a major national gathering of housing activists. Performed by Housing Action Now member Paula Kearney, The Apology publicly acknowledges the failures of the Irish State with regards to housing policy and provision in this country. The filmed performance has since been screened in multiple contexts including community centres, arts and cultural institutions, educational institutions and at private and public events throughout the country. On the 2nd March 2022, The Apology was read into public record at Seanad Éireann by Senators Lynn Ruane and Eileen Ní Fhloinn as part of a Seanad Private Members Motion on Housing brought by Senators Ruane, Ní Fhloinn, Higgins and Black. The Apology script and performance serve as prompts and resources to all individuals and organisations committed to housing justice in Ireland.

Housing Action Now is a collective of community workers, researchers, activists and artists concerned with the growing housing crisis in Ireland. HAN works with representatives from renters unions, those working with asylum seekers, refugees, disabled people, Traveller organisations, housing and homelessness and those in the student accommodation housing sectors.

Multi-Story Act 1: The Apology was supported by Create, the national development agency for collaborative arts, through the Arts Council’s Commissions Award 2020.

Multi-Story Act II began in 2024 and is led by artist Evelyn Broderick and HAN and aims to activate conversations, performances, and spaces to share solutions for the Housing Crisis. For more information on the Multi-Story project, see: create-ireland.ie/programme/multi-story