SITE OF CHANGE: Evolution of a Building

Crawford Art Gallery, Cork.

04/03/2023 - 12/11/2023

SITE OF CHANGE was an exhibition at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, curated by Dr Michael Waldron.

The show brought together a selection of images, documents and objects which offered the audience particular insights into the story of the Crawford Art Gallery building.

It has a layered history, that building: a custom house in the 18th century, a refuge for the collective archive after the burning of the Carnegie Library during the Irish Civil War, Cork School of Art from 1850 until its decampment in 1979.

Soon, the building will experience a fresh rupture in the form of a large-scale redevelopment. I felt this was a good time to take stock. We tend to look forward to what will be, and it is often only after a transformation, once the memory of the old has been obliterated by the new, that we wish we had a record of how things were before.

Early last year, I was kindly granted a two-week desk residency in the building.

During my residency, I was drawn to the secret places: the non public-facing parts of the art gallery where physical traces of its past lives are still discoverable.

For the duration of my time in the building I felt I had entered a strange place: somewhere between past and future, but not quite the present.

My work in In SITE OF CHANGE: Evolution of a Building comprised six selected photographs which came from my explorations during the residency. They’re really research photos, taken without ever a thought of exhibiting them.