A Mile Apart

Abstract

Abstract: This paper explores through the use of photography, a parallel mapping of the ‘unspoken’ domestic sphere, the myth of the safety of home, and set against political and external events in a unique period of recent history. It is focused on Belfast, Northern Ireland and the period of ‘The Troubles’.

It examines the nature of the space we inhabit, the vernacular, the everyday and how this might influence our identity. Drawing on the work of Bachelard (1969) it will also explore how the vernacular can be located in a different time frame, and therefore allows for a new representation and perspective. The recreation of a wholly new space that partially exists in our experience and further exists in our interpretation of that through memory. It exists in our own parallel universe of understanding wherein we become spectators in the drama of our past.

In this research the camera is working in a reversal of representation, using potentially unreliable memory to recreate moments of past events. These moments are often fragments or elements of scenarios. It is not the reliability of memory that is in question but rather the need to have validation of a remembered thing in speaking and visualising of it. Through a series of constructed images, this paper will explore this journey of representation, memory and how the photographic mnemonic becomes a device to explore divergent memories in relation to the home as well as external influences on identity and memory.