Unquiet, 2022

Unquiet crosses the invisible border in the Irish Sea.

Photographed on passenger ferries traversing the contested water between Ireland and Great Britain as boundaries and borders are re-drawn, Unquiet is a meditation on the fragility of identity and assumed freedoms.

In disrupting the seascapes with the structural lines of the ship’s architecture, the viewer is challenged to question their own place in the myriad identities that are associated with the Irish Sea & ‘these Islands’.

Timid seascapes bely a deeper, overwhelming & pervasive uneasiness with the future, as shifting borders & changing Empires conspire to throw people’s lives off-course. The sense of division is driven by the current political oscillations across the sea.

Ports & ferries hold a complex place in our society and the work seeks to illuminate the Irish Sea as a place between places, vulnerable to change, as political & social forces conspire to disrupt the status quo.

Making the work has sometimes been a cathartic means of escape, while also helping to make sense of a seemingly unravelling world. These photographs aim to chart a voyage of reflection, acceptance & understanding through the many sea crossings I have taken in search of resolution.

Unquiet formed part of the Ulster University MFA-Photography Group Exhibition at Belfast Exposed.
A Trace of Ownership | BX Gallery, Belfast | 2nd - 23rd June 2022

Unquiet is also presented as a concertina photo-book.