LACUNA (2015-2021) is a photographic and audio/visual work that considers the physical and psychological impact of partition on children of the Irish borderlands.
Flowing through the centre of the village the River Termon marks the physical border finding Pettigo both in Donegal and Fermanagh, Ireland and the UK, and – soon – inside and outside the European Union. Three bridges span the river – and at places where it narrows, often, without realising, you can step across into another country.
LACUNA responds to the idea of the border as a ‘landless’ land or a cavity in understanding. Collaborating with young people – the first generation to grow up after the Good Friday Agreement – we explore the notion of the border as a place in flux. The work weaves together still and moving images, recorded stories and an original soundscape to evoke the tangible and intangible, natural and constructed nature of the border.
The diffusion of the physical border in recent years means that for young people there has been minimal impact on physical movement. The prospect of the introduction of an international border between the EU and the UK with Brexit gives rise to new uncertainties about the future.
LACUNA will continue to work with children along the Irish borderlands in the years leading up to the centenary of partition in 2021.
Kate Nolan is an Irish photographic artist and filmmaker drawn to ‘in-between’ spaces. Her practice is centered on sustained engagement and dialogues with communities in geographical locations where identity and territory are contested. She combines still and moving images with stories from individuals to highlight the contradictions and tenuous relationships between political borders and cultural identity. Her current long-term project LACUNA (2015-2021) had it’s first solo show at the Gallery of Photography, Dublin, September/October 2017 and has since toured to Remote Photo Festival, RCC Letterkenny, April/May 2018 and An Gailearaí, Co. Donegal July/August 2018. The work was presented for Culture Night in Meeting House Square, Dublin, Ireland and Pettigo, Co. Donegal and presented as part of a group show for New Irish Works as part of PhotoIreland, alongside a publication of the work in July 2017. Nolan was recently selected for the second year as Walkers Photographer-in-Residence 2019, as part of the Docklands Arts Fund, Dublin, Ireland and the Centre Cultural Irlandis Residency, Paris 2019.
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