Joe Caslin Street murals

This exhibition shows some of the work of artist, Joe Caslin; whose work began mysteriously appearing on the streets and buildings of Edinburgh's city centre in April 2012.

'Our Nation's sons' is the title of this street-art project. Joe Caslin was, at the time a postgraduate student of illustration at the Edinburgh College of Art and his work formed part of the Edinburgh College of Art degree show in 2012.

The project consisted of a number of drawings being pasted to different buildings, walls and even steps, over a 10 day period, around Edinburgh's City Centre. The pictures are large scale black and white drawings of teenage boys, or Tyros as they were named, taken from the Latin Tiro, "to be a beginner in learning anything, a novice". The boys were from St Thomas of Aquin's school and they assisted in putting up the pictures as well as being the faces of the project. A short film documenting their views and work on the project is available on Joe Caslin's website

Caslin's website gives the best explanation as to what 'Our Nation's Sons' aimed to achieve, simply that: "to use portrait drawings as a tool to provoke and question current representations of young men in today's society. The media openly ridicules and demonises this generational group. By using words such as NED (Non-Educated-Delinquent) and CHAV (Council-Housed-And-Violent) we continually push young people out of society and slowly beat them into apathy. I want to change this"

This exhibition allows us to look back on Caslin's project and to retain a record of these pictures beyond their natural life. It also allows us to try and record the message that the project aims to convey; to consider the attitudes towards, young people in society today.