Institutional works (2010-2011)

This short collection of works have be undertaken as part of the Institutional Works scheme of the Reflexions Masterclass. The work itself examines Institutional spaces (many of which are in a stage of transition, of some form or another). The buildings in question are largely cultural buildings such as the Maison De La Photographie (Paris), Foundazione de Venezia (Venice) and the University of Lugano (Switzerland).

Point of Departure...Another Year

This little series is part of the ongoing ‘The Photo Course’ project, which explores the enviornment of a Photographic Course in Dublin.Part of this work reflects on the ‘void’ that I experience every year at this particular time, when I say goodbye to another group of students that I have worked with in the college.

There is a sense of vacancy throughout. In the last couple of years, on the final day of college, I have become accustomed to the ritual of ‘hanging around’ – waiting until everyone has left the building and I have an overwhelming feeling of being alone. It provides some space – to think, to reflect and to photograph. I contemplate the year(s), the people, the conversations, the activities and the struggles of the preceding months. The natural thing for me to do, at this point, is to photograph. The approach is studied - meditative, maybe. The physical surroundings and minutae within it are photographed when it is bereft of the energy and synergy of students and tutors. There is always, in my mind, the reality of times relentless melt - the passing of years and the subtle changes to the environment left by the transience of people. Thus, the work speaks of ‘detachment’.

The work is also about subtle and ephemeral micro-events which happen in the duration of a day, a week, a year, which become part of the history of the building. As we move forward we create and we construct. We develop and perform ideas and discourse physically in and on the environment. We shape that environment through our mental and physical interactions, day upon day, year upon year. We also destruct. Destruction is part of the creative process. In my practice I have always been attracted to subtle traces of destruction, be it in this project or other projects (Note to self: Perhaps it is the balance of construction and destruction, the cycles of each, that are the core of this and other work).

The act of photographing these traces, these physical detachments, this gentle destruction, actually helps me to grasp and ‘possess’ the illusive feelings and losses that I experience at this time. Photography becomes a kind of meditative process, a process which helps me to psychologically bridge these transitions (Note to self: Is it all about loss?) It speaks to me, in a profound way, of a certain reality of these transient, ephemeral relationships which are built year upon year between myself and my students and, in a less profound way, of the relationships between (photographic) discourse, practice and the environment (of photography).

Generation to Generation (Ongoing Work)

“No past, no future, no, not even a present, there was’nt even a memory"

Hubert Selby Jr.
Song of the Silent Snow

‘Generation to Generation’ (proposed title) is a complex exploration the relationship between myself and my rural background, my sense of heritage and the obligation of tradition connected to the landscape. I have been exploring that delicate and uncomfortable balancing-act between belonging and disassociation. I find myself longing to connect, or reconnect, to the place or with the landscape. Yet, the overriding impression or feeling is one of ‘distance’.

“…and living roots awaken in my head"

There are virtues which ennoble the rural character, at least to those of us who have grown up with the conditional rhetoric of ‘The Land’ ingrained into every part of our individual and collective psyche. These virtues of labour, of heritage, of tradition; of generational cycles, of possession, of culture and the preservation of each, give the landscape a value and a meaning beyond its physical state. On the outset, I am not questioning these virtues or these traditions - I value them beyond reason.

I see my ‘role’ as someone who can (visually) express something about the nature, the complexities of generational gaps, the complexities of a sense of heritage - which is bound by head, by heart, by tradition, to feel an obligation to the landscape.

It is easy to say that I am a typical example of my generation who has turned his back on rural life and is, in a very insolent manner, betraying my heritage. I am aware of these perceptions. I have heard all the local mutterings I can stomach. Yet, this does not scratch the surface of the complexity of the condition. Yes, there is a lingering sense of guilt in breaking inherited traditions of farming, of labour, of connection. But this is ‘the condition’ that I have the absolute necessity, above all else, to explore. This is my impulse, this is who I am.

I consider, to sidetrack a little, John B Keanes ‘The Field’ – where the darker side of this attachment is acted-out in a malevolent and eventually violent way. Through its main character – ‘The Bull McCabe’ - there is a stubborn assertion of selfhood and identity, through ownership, which leads to the act of murder of one man by another - both of whom have competing claims to “The Land”. The larger questions raised, for me, by this powerful work are interesting ones: is the culture of ‘The Land’ in McCabes world psychologically corrupted through this necessity of ownership and is it essentially worth preserving. In a sense, this question expresses something dark, petulant, unnecessary with the ideology of attachment. There is a glorification of sacrifice – sacrifice of morals, of friends, of family, of community, of reason, to hold onto and assert ones heritage; which at times is imaginary. The brutality and assertion of fixed beliefs, of loyalty to these ideals, open up questions of what we have become and of the darker side of possession and tradition. This ‘darker side’ is not one I wish to explore at this point, yet, I concede does exist in my world in various manifestations.

I feel I am working with, and exploring, a ‘real’ psychological condition that exists with many of my generation of rural people who, possibly, do not feel the necessity or sense of connection with rural life or with the world of their father. Heaney, Kavanagh amongst others have expressed this condition and this complexity with words. To express it visually allows for me a re-negotiation of, not just self, but of the density of the photographic language. I concede that photography is a limited form of expression. We rely on surface - on grain, and how we use it determines the meaning we are trying to communicate. Just as the feelings and emotions can not manifest themselves within any ‘pallette’ of given words – guilt, responsibility, hatred, revulsion, love, freedom, possibly. Close. I am also limited to the expression of these complexities through visual means – through the camera. Here, the sensations manifest themselves within a whole new syntax: guilt, aperture, insecurity, exposure, framing, anger, light, focus, love, tripod.

Visually, the latest direction of my work has a strong sense of atmosphere and an aesthetic I am trying to push – the aesthetic of whiteness (its colour photography, as close to Black & White as possible – or simply ‘White’ photography?). This is, for now, a winter project. In this particular body of work, the whiteness of the landscape, for me, fits perfectly with the sense of detachment, with capturing the landscape at a point in its seasonal cycle when it has its least growth, its least value. At this moment, I feel a freedom of the correct expression of the condition I want to explore – no past, no future, no memory, no pathos, no nostalgia - just there, dealing with the emotion and non-emotion of the ties that bind. I cannot make sense of the landscape in any other way. I cannot make sense of a reason to photograph the landscape in any other way. I also cannot make sense of the ideology of the virtues of rural life as ‘grounded’ above the virtues of other ways of life, nor of the necessity to repress an artistic spirit and my personal sense of the absolute value and necessity for expression in opposition to this way of life. They co-exist in my world. This expression is located somewhere deep within contradictory impulses – the need to create and the need to bow to tradition, the need to be there and the need to escape, the need to be self-determining and to be my fathers son. I feel that the work comes from a place – a territory that is physical and emotional. It comes from the inside of this place. One conclusion could be read is the re-assuring fact that I have a deep attachment to this place, to what it means and to expressing this through the only means I know how.

For now, I work on the land in this way, for now.

The White Project ( December 2010)

“Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees.”

The following images are part of an ongoing project which works with a combination of things - the monochromatic, the act of vision and with layering. The selection of images, in many ways, represent an essential characteristic of my work over the last year or so. In some of my projects, I have been moving towards an approach that is less and less ‘descriptive’, more evocative, more abstract; but still keeping this abstraction grounded to a degree in the real.

In many of the images there is no clear subject. They try to call the viewer’s attention to the lack of concrete and material reality of subject matter. They evoke questions: What are we looking at? What is in front and what is behind the surface? What is the surface? The sense of vision, the absence of the subject and an ambiguity of sight is essentially an important effect. To a degree I am dealing with issues similar to those involved in the work of Uta Barth whose ‘out of focus’ images of domestic enviornments uses blur purely as an expression of the organic act of seeing. By focusing on where the subject would be in a conventional photograph, Barth turns the viewer into the subject. Her work is, essentially, about the act of looking and the act of photographic vision. In my approach, however, I want to share my own visual experience with the viewer - to include a sense of personal sight within the work.

Working with a minimalist palette is also an important feature here. I am, of course, furthering a tendency of producing colour images that are almost black and white. The ‘whiteness’ of the work is a direction that I want to continue in many of my projects. This was suggested to me at the last RM meeting in Paris. The whiteness of the sky and the ‘graphic’ of whiteness in the Suspended State work drew a number of interesting comments. I was strongly advised to push and push this type of abstraction as far as possible and still keep the work overtly ‘documentary’ - to keep it connected to a material objective reality. I think that this is the territory I am working within for the last year or so. For the ongoing project ‘Home’, for instance, this approach has helped me to understand something about my disengagement from landscape and from the past; for 'Suspended State' it has been a conceptual feature of my photographic relationship to abandoned spaces. It is an important strategy which I hope to continue to explore throughout the next few months.

Top to Bottom:
Dublin from 51C Bus (Dec 2010)
Maison Des La Photographie, Paris (Nov 2010)
Seascape (Nov 2010)

Dublin (Dec 2010)
Maison Des La Photographie, Paris (Nov 2010)

Approaching the Theme of Utopia (Nov 2010)

The following samples of work were presented in the Reflexions Masterclass forum during the Mois De La Photographie in Paris (Nov 2010). One of the challenges of participating in such an event is the heavy demands to create, prepare and present work on a specific assigned theme within a very short period of time. The pressure to create is largely accredited to the knowledge I have of the intensity of the experience of these presentations and the presence of such esteemed and informed artists and guests, with whom I have to share my work. It is daunting and testing; but stimulating and energizing at the same time. One of the benefits of such a thematic task is the possibility (at times necessity) to change and alter ones style, approach or direction, for instance. It also encourages, for me, a type of re-negotiation of self – provoking questions of exactly what ‘type’ of photographer I have become and how I have allowed myself to become this way.

With the thematic works there is also the opportunity to investigate or develop a previous subject matter or project. My starting point for the theme ‘Utopia’ was a ‘mini-project’ that I worked on in 2004. The work as a whole, at the time, was ‘thin’ to say the least. I didn’t fully understand the topic, or indeed photography to any great degree. But, I liked to (try to) make disconcerting photographs at the time and was starting to think about using the camera to respond to real social conditions. For the purposes of the RM, I decided to expand on this project in the context of the specific conditions of today.

Utopias’ are generally ‘models’ proposing an alteration in reality or ‘models’ to understand reality. These conceptual models propose invented places - places constructed in the imagination. In this case, constructed in an ideal future. This connection with an imaginary and an unattainable social condition is inescapable. This reality/imaginary duality can help to devise a useful categorization of a central feature to the theme itself and an interesting point of departure for what would be considered a side-project for the moment. My concentration is on places which are surrounded by a certain utopian trope – advertising hoardings and images which project an ideal futuristic environment. However what is presented is the failure of Utopia. Damaged hoardings surrounding abandoned environments in Dublin, Netherlands and Morocco. (Note to Self: The diversity of location is something worth persuing?)

Notes: One thing is undoubted: the camera creates its own reality, regardless. My intention is to re-inforce the sense of the imaginary. This sense of confusion is an important sensory strategy to represent this theme – introducing a more dynamic and playful focus, use of colour, etc. It was/is important to keep my ‘personality’ within the work, but, perhaps transform my ‘palette’, if you like, perhaps reinforce more energy, more visual stimulation. The subject demanded a suitable approach, yet, still contain a similar vision which is consistent with my ongoing projects.

Some Recent Works

Suspended State (September 2010)