Plantation Plantation explores the actual physicality of the planning process and how it is reflected on the land. Linking social concerns of the area with a site specific installation . It achieves this by means of a photographic documentation and mapping of land undergoing planning application around the south Sligo county region. The documentation of these spaces reflects the true diversity of what is being mediated. From simple house extensions, pathway improvements and renovations to radical alterations of the landscape like the creation of wind farms, large housing developments and commercial activities. Putting forth the social concerns of the wider sphere back into the public realm for re-negotiation. In Plantation, Dara McGrath explores the dialogue involved in the planning process, and the effect of that dialogue on the land. His photo installation shows the ambiguous position of the land; how it is being considered for development, or altered and changed through the creation of wind farms, large housing developments and commercial activities. This exploratory work highlights the fact that the destination of the landscape is never certain, and examines the influence of political, social and personal factors on this. |
Blind Men on Galloping Horses The evolving interior design of Irish public houses can be seen as an index of social change. Notwithstanding the availability of mocha, latte and pannini's to the growing number of S.U.V. driving customers, the "stereo-type" Irish Pub derives from the 19 th century. It is now available globally as an exportable package. The ubiquitous "Irish Pub" frozen framed sepia toned nostalgia has, whether intentionally or not, come to represent "Ireland" to millions throughout the world. In all likelihood it includes photographs from the Lawrence Collection. This extraordinary chronicle of Irish life, available at a nominal fee from the National Library, became a feature of Irish pubs in the 1970's and 80's. The fact that it chronicled so much of the country allowed local publicans to display their town and village in the "good old days". Thus photography became a means of inducing communal amnesia - or did it?........ Yes, if I am to believe an elected representative of Dingle, Co.Kerry, with whom I had a protracted discussion some years ago about the merits of a consolidated urban form. He, like many local representatives, was a virulent proponent of ribbon development. As a naïve outsider I waxed lyrical about the millenia of heritage that defined my view of Corcha Dhuibne. The extraordinary concentration of megalithic remains, the craft of corbelled beehive huts, the poignancy of emigration and the legacy of the Gaelic language. My friend cited the Lawrence photos on the wall as the beginning and end of history in Dingle: A form of band-aid that had cauterised the wounds of history and offered a tangible, yet unthreatening reference point, in the same way that, perhaps, a family photo album concretises memory, and exorcises painful truth. Maybe all societies need the comfort blanket of nostalgia, to endure the pain of change. In fifty years the landscape of Ireland has metamorphised radically. We are all complicit in the nature and quality of change. Of course successive plantations induced deforestation, new field patterns, great human misery and paradoxically some things and places of great beauty. We will all have heard politicians cite colonisation, oppression, landlordism and effete Dublin elitism as a justification for "a no holds barred" plantation of the Irish rural landscape. "Plantation" is an evocative, emotive and provocative title for the work of an Irish artist observing the impacts on the Irish landscape induced by a free Irish people. Dara McGrath's camera brings us beyond narrative, the picturesque, and cosy myth: no air brush or John Hinde post cards here. If cuts to the chase without being didactic, judgmental, or begrudging. It gives equal time and space to the eloquent silence of a see-saw in a suburban garden as it does the a neolithic "Gallán" (standing stone) improvising as a fence post. His acerbic, humane, and pithy focus is on the New Planters of the New Republic. Patrick Kavanagh was known as a grumpy curmudgeon: Even grumpy curmudgeons need to be occasionally quoted. Here is Kavanagh's "Dark Ireland": "We are dark people, A blind man on a galloping horse is presumed not to notice. In casting a cold eye on Ireland, Dara McGrath may not cure the blind horseman. He may however persuade him to pass by ......... slowly. Sean O'Laoire, July, 2004Sean O'Laoire is Senior Partner with Murray O'Laoire Architects |