Exhibition continues until Saturday, 21 December 2024.
between now and there* takes as its emblematic subject, an archival collection of family photographs and slides. These, along with polaroids taken on my final visit to the family home, prior to its sale following my mother’s death, form the basis of this work. A series of transformations changes the fundamental nature of the images. This includes layering and inverting, and most dramatically, a radical shift in scale from diminutive analogue photographs and slides to a series of digital prints each spanning two and a quarter metres. The resulting blurring, fading, and distortion seem to reveal the intrinsic nature of memory and recall – their fallibility and transmutability, inherently bound up with notions of identity.
Presented alongside, are a series of small objects indicating the minutiae of everyday life, changes in economic circumstances and geographical mobility. These objects, recovered from the home that belonged to my mother, my uncle and my grandparents before that, provide a vehicle for exploring ideas of home, place, belongingand how we define ourselves. The seemingly random connections between objects and images, convey the fragmented nature of memory and the act of remembering. The work considers how we try to reconcile (sometimes painful) memories of the past with the present, and in so doing, reveal contradictions as well as new readings and possibilities.
The universally relatable family photographs of home – the kitchen, the garden, the greenhouse, a favourite tree, the street – are offered as devices to trigger shared memory – a collective recovering of our family histories. And with this, a means to acknowledge change and begin the process of reconciliation with people, things and places lost.
Sue Morris was born in England and is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, London. Since the early nineties she has lived in Ireland, most recently in Derry, Northern Ireland. Her multidisciplinary practice utilizes drawing, text, printmaking, film, photography, sound and installation. Her work explores historical and personal narratives: the known and the unknown, real and imagined, how identity is constructed and the erroneous nature of memory. The work is often in response to a particular place or specific set of circumstances.
*This is an oblique reference to John Berger’s essay, ‘Between Here and Then’, in Understanding a Photograph, Ed. Geoff Dyer, 2013. Penguin Books.
This exhibition was supported by The Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council Northern Ireland and Donegal County Council.