1-31 July
Opening: 6pm 30 June
At The Library Project
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 are Mandy O’Neill and Daragh Soden.
Find out more and pre-order your copies at newirishworks.com
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Promise
Promise is the story of a school, of lessons on bar stools, pupils and politicians, a rat named Elvis, classes on the green, stifling heat in summer and damp in winter, singing, dancing, protests, rituals and a labyrinth of bureaucracy.
Gaelscoil Bharra Primary School was established in 1994 and is housed in a series of prefabricated units. As far back as 2000 an inspector from the Department of Education recommended that planning permission for a permanent school should be initiated due to the “deplorable state of the temporary accommodation”. In 2012 the Irish government announced that it was allocating 35 million that year to replace prefabs with permanent classrooms at over 200 schools. Gaelscoil Bharra was included in this development plan.
When O’Neill started this work it was with the premise of documenting the last year of the prefabs, as building was due to begin in 2013. In March 2016 the first builders finally arrived. This work is the result of the four years she has spent documenting the everyday and not so everyday happenings at the school.
It speaks to the great potential of these young people while posing questions about the frameworks in place to help realise it. In a broader sense it queries the ongoing rhetoric of ‘recovery’ in Ireland, and why it has taken so long to begin to resolve such basic issues
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Young Dubliners
Young Dubliners is a celebration of the unique character of Dublin’s youth. During a time of economic struggle in Ireland, a housing shortage in Dublin and austerity measures squeezing public services and domestic budgets, the young people of Ireland’s capital are championed in empowering portraits as they make the transition to adulthood. These young Dubliners are at a time in their lives when they will make decisions that will affect their futures and may determine the course of their lives. Yet, they are subject to forces beyond their direct control. Their futures, their fates, are not entirely in their own hands.They have already inherited circumstances of differing fortune and will inherit the positive and negative effects of actions taken by the powers that be. The subjects of the work are united in their youth but are divided in Dublin.
Young Dubliners presents young Dubliners presenting themselves, in their own environments. There is a consistent approach in empowering the subject of each photograph, however the setting varies. Around the figure in the foreground, the extent of social division in Dublin is apparent.
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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.
