Push / Pull, 2019, from the series Against Domestication, 2019-ongoing
Shia Conlon
Shia Conlon, Push / Pull, 2019, from the series Against Domestication, 2019-ongoing
About the Artist:
Shia Conlon (b. 1990) is a writer and artist whose work has been centred around marginalized voices and growing up in the landscape of working-class Catholic Ireland. Conlon’s research is focused on non-linear time, queer representation, archives, language, and memory. He lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. Conlon’s Against Domestication is an examination of power structures and how they might opress a body. Those structures take the shape of gender, sexuality, religion, the family, and the state. The project serves as a form in which to explore the rearticulation of trauma where the camera is utilized as a form of speech. The resulting image acts as a language to communicate the otherwise ineffable. So often trauma takes away the inability to articulate, and memories become obscured. The act of speaking, making a language, post-trauma, is political.
Details: Archival pigment inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Baryta, 50x70cm (paper size), uneditioned print, produced 2021, acquired for the National Photography Collection 2022.
About the National Photography Collection:
The National Photography Collection builds on the Gallery’s sustained commitment to supporting artists in the development and promotion of their work. Through collaboration, we hope to grow the collection as an archive repository offering an overview of photographic practice in Ireland.
As an essential critical and historical resource, the National Photography Collection is an exciting initiative for the Gallery and for the future of Irish photography. We are deeply honoured that the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins has agreed to be Patron of the Collection.
The artists featured in the Collection are:
Ciarán Óg Arnold; Enda Bowe; Noel Bowler; Ala Buisir; Simon Burch; Dorje de Burgh; Krass Clement; Shia Conlon; Martin Cregg; Mark Curran; Ciaran Dunbar; John Duncan; Tessy Ehiguese; David Farrell; Kevin Fox; Paul Gaffney; Clare Gallagher; Emer Gillespie; Karl Grimes; Anthony Haughey; Seán Hillen; Patrick Hogan; Tobi Isaac-Irein; Dragana Jurišić; Jamin Keogh; Jialin Long; Markéta Luskačová; Shane Lynam; Alen MacWeeney; Dara McGrath; Moira McIver; Yvette Monahan; Tony Murray; Brian Newman; Kate Nolan; Miriam O'Connor; Kenneth O'Halloran; Mandy O'Neill; Tony O'Shea; Pete Smyth; Nigel Swann; Harry Thuillier Jr; George Voronov and Róisín White.