Image: Untitled, 2007, from the series Midlands 2015, © Martin Cregg

In Our Own Image: The Politics of Place

The third chapter of the Museum’s year-long In Our Own Image exhibition programme, The Politics of Place is a landmark survey exhibition that undertakes a critical reframing of the way Irish life has been represented through photography. It addresses how photographers have engaged with one of the defining obsessions of our national identity – the notion of place.

For a people so often uprooted and dispossessed, the identification of Irishness with place, with home and the ownership of land, even with the state itself, carries incredible weight. The photographers in this exhibition use place as a way of speaking to and about national identity, the spaces and the landscapes we share, the ground that we hold in common and the boundaries that divide us.

By mapping these contested territories, they consider how the relationship between place and Irishness, broadly defined, has been transformed, addressing the profound changes that have reshaped Irish society over the last four decades, from the decline of the church to the impact of globalisation, through to ongoing crises around housing, migration, and the environment.

Moving away from traditional documentary towards more socially-engaged and inclusive ways of thinking about the medium, the selected works by emerging and established artists featured in The Politics of Place touch on the most pressing issues around Irish identity and history, coming to terms with the legacies of the past and facing the challenges of the future.

Image: Coghalstown Wood, from the series Small Acts of Memory, 2009-2010, © David Farrell

Rather than presenting a canon of photography, this exhibition has been curated to emphasise the visual and conceptual languages characteristic of recent photographic practice in Ireland. It highlights our long-term commitment to developing and showcasing major bodies of work by Irish artists at the cutting-edge of contemporary trends, helping to interrogate what Irishness is, and to reimagine what it might look like. 

Featured artists: Enda Bowe, Noel Bowler, Simon Burch, Martin Cregg, Mark Curran, Ciaran Dunbar, John Duncan, David Farrell, Kevin Fox, Paul Gaffney, Fiona Hackett, Anthony Haughey, Seán Hillen, Shane Hynan, Dragana Jurišić, Bernadette Keating, Jamin Keogh, Shane Lynam, Stephen McGinn, Dara McGrath, Yvette Monahan, Jackie Nickerson, Kate Nolan, Miriam O’Connor, Kenneth O’Halloran, Rory O’Neill, Martin Seeds, Niamh Smith, Amelia Stein and Izabela Szczutkowska.