Launch: 6th October, 6pm
Running: 6-23 October
Location: The Library Project
For the third edition of New Irish Works 2016, PhotoIreland presents Jan McCullough’s Home Instruction Manual, and Jill Quigley’s Cottages of Quigley’s Point.
Every month from July 2016 to July 2017, a special presentation will be hosted at The Library Project for two selected New Irish Works artists at a time. The presentation will include a display and a launch of a publication for each artist’s project.
Find out more and pre-order your copies at newirishworks.com
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Home Instruction Manual
Traditionally, instruction manuals have been the perfect source for practical solutions. Experts in specific subjects provide written authority on how to repair faults and carry out tasks from scratch.
McCullough typed ‘how to make a home’ into Google, and was directed to an online chat forum in which self-described experts were exchanging detailed instructions. She rented an ordinary suburban house and carried out the strangers’ advice exactly over the period of two months. In complying with the instructions for making the perfect home, she contemplated the construction of an identity from scratch. The photographs document the end result of her time living and working in the house, trying on different lives for size.
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Cottages of Quigley’s Point
Cottages of Quigley’s Point makes use of photographed interventions in abandoned houses to question romantic readings of the rural Irish cottage. An exploration of the numerous ruined dwellings near Jill’s childhood home in Donegal, Ireland, the project is a means of investigating and re-imagining local heritage. Rather than viewing these houses as artefacts with nostalgic associations, their redundant nature allows the freedom for active engagement and the creation of a personal record of explorations made in Quigley’s locality. The addition of bright colours and movement of these empty interiors is intended to situate the subject matter in the present as encountered and to emphasise her presence in that time and place. As such, the process of intervention subverts a wistful reading of a disappearing way of life, and provides the opportunity to take a fresh and playful approach to familiar subject matter.
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About New Irish Works
Selected by an international panel of 23 professionals, New Irish Works brings you a selection of 20 projects and 20 photographers representing the diverse range of practices coming from Ireland. New Irish Works 2016 is a year long project of 10 presentations and 20 publications that aims to highlight the great moment Irish Photography is experiencing.
The artists selected are Ailbhe Ní Bhriain, Aisling McCoy, Caitriona Dunnett, Dara McGrath, Daragh Soden, David Thomas Smith, Eanna de Freine, Emer Gillespie, Enda Bowe, Jan McCullough, Jill Quigley, Kate Nolan, Mandy O’Neill, Matthew Thompson, Miriam O’Connor, Noel Bowler, Robert McCormack, Roseanne Lynch, Shane Lynam, and Yvette Monahan.
Every month from July 2016 to July 2017, a special presentation will be hosted at The Library Project for two of the selected artists at a time. The presentation will include a display and a publication for each artist’s project. The two artists that will be presented during PhotoIreland Festival 2016 are Daragh Soden and Mandy O’Neill.
As part of the project, PhotoIreland will bring New Irish Works abroad at key events like PhotoEspaña, with the support of the Embassy of Ireland in Madrid, and to Paris during Paris Photo, with the support of the Centre Culturel Irlandais and Culture Ireland.
