“The impetus for this particular project emerged out of a sense of needing to find a specific kind of environment within which to spend time and, inevitably, create work. More often, I found myself drawn toward isolated locations: spaces with seemingly little subject matter to draw on or respond to. The idea of the ‘peripheral’ – something open-ended, at the margins, non-representable perhaps – stayed in my mind. This, and a sense of divergence – between the usual experience of an urban setting, versus time spent in relative solitude, away from this environment – were the starting points for this work. Over the years, the project took on the form of a sort of repository for images; material was regularly being added, without cause for resolution. New projects emerged in the meantime, and older work fell by the wayside. Lately, I spend more time than ever researching; this can help clarify and shape the work when things begin to dissipate. For this project, for example, I found resonance in the work of authors such as Jacky Bowring, Byung-Chul Han, Seamus Heaney, John Moriarty, Rebecca Solnit, Santōka Taneda and Liz Wells, amongst others.

“For this particular feature, I decided to attempt an overhaul – this time dividing the project into three four-year sections, the first of which I have just completed. I reprinted the earlier work in the darkroom, and revisited unused video footage from this period. The next two sections will feature more work in colour – instant film is something I used extensively in this project from 2015 onwards – as well as objects, sound and more monochrome darkroom work. The project starts from a position of lack, and represents an attempt to create a body of work using minimal, often textural elements such as geological features; the gloomy drama of the Irish weather; seascapes and mountain terrain, in combination with the limitations and imperfections of analogue photography. It involves patterns of revisitation and repetition; over the years, motifs and scenes become recurrent, varying according to seasonal and temporal shifts. This is, in turn, echoed in the parallel and distinct act of developing, processing and reworking the photographic materials in various forms. Within all of this, I am interested in the tension that arises between what Hubert Damisch calls ‘photographic substance’ [images as fragments that inhabit a distinct material basis] and apparent subject-matter.