Corners of Dublin

Corners of Dublin
An Instagram project by Peter Staniszewski

In the fast-moving and mercurial world of social media, the photography app is the art world’s weapon of choice. Instagram, the mobile photo-sharing application that allows users to share pictures and videos, is clearly the leader of the pack.

Since its launch seven years ago, Instagram’s worldwide user count has grown to over 600 million monthly active accounts in 2017. With the introduction of features such as the hashtag, the platform has encouraged users to choose photos more carefully in their feeds, therefore creating special interest and niche groups in a sometimes cluttered, image-driven world of design, food, fashion and photography.

(Above) The City Arts Centre, Dublin. Photography and graphic manipulation by Peter Staniszewski. © Peter Staniszewski

In Ireland, Instagram has proven to be the app du jour for amateur and professional photographers alike.

If you tend to be an Instagram user with a considerably large follow group, the task of sifting through countless accounts on your feed could result in a bout of ‘scrollers thumb’. Among the deluge of saccharin-infused Clarendon, Lark, X-Pro II, lens flare-filtered holiday snaps, uneaten plates of high-end restaurant food and fashion promos are a handful of outstanding, leftfield gems.

Corners of Dublin is an Instagram account that focuses purely on architecture – exploring the forgotten, neglected or ignored crumbling beauties of Dublin city.

“I had this idea to remove all external distractions, to eradicate all unnecessary clutter in a bid to make each individual facade and corner of our city a focal point”, says Peter Staniszewski, photographer and graphic designer behind the account.

Originally from Posnan, Poland, Staniszewski graduated in Photographic Media at Griffith College Dublin and became a “self-taught” graphic designer. Now living and working in Ireland, Staniszewski’s idiosyncratic take on the capital is proof that this city’s charm may go unnoticed by most indigenous Dubs.

“So often in a world of blue screens and techno screams, of being plugged into the hashtags and the latest fads, we can succumb to ignoring the nooks, crooks and the very bones of a life-worn cityscape that lays bare all around us”, says Staniszewski.

“I like to think of this project as a self portrait of a colourful patchwork of a city I call home”.