Material photo collages featuring hand embroidery, 2024. Dimensions variable. Polyester crepe the Chine, organza, wool and found materials. Created during art residency at Det Vilde Spinderi, Denmark.

I composed habits for those acres

So that my last look would be

Neither gluttonous nor starved.

I was ready to go anywhere.

 

- Taken from Seamus Heaney’s poem “Land” 

 

In the life of an emigrant, there is a complex interplay between movement and stability, belonging and exile. In the last 17 years, having lived in five different countries, these sentiments have been echoed throughout my practice. In 'Transitional Geographies', I wanted to play with material as a way to navigate both physical and emotional terrains—the past and the present —the real and the imagined - as those which I believe map and inform the self. 

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Layered and collaged images, intercut or disturbed by thread, wool or text, reflect the notion of "negotiating" belonging and identity; suggesting an ongoing tension between the desire for stability and the pull of migration. The primary content for the project was gathered in Tallaght, Dublin, where I was born and where I currently live. For over 4 months I took photographs daily on different walks around my neighbourhood. These photographs form the basis of the project, and of each piece. 

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