Blues Singer Puts it up to Us

About a year ago my brother Ian played me a track he was working on, he had recorded the piece with Dublin Blues Legend Ditch Cassidy.  Ians last outing with Ditch spawned the rough and tumble 'We Built This House' A track about the financial collapse of 2007/8 which was used for the titles in Donald Taylor Blacks' excellent Feature film  Doc 'Skin in the Game' Which also featured musical contributions from Christy Moore and Barry Mc Cormack
I knew when I heard it it was some thing very special.
Around summertime we set about making a video for it, Earlier in the year I had an idea about a mysterious man in a white suit which I though might work for this presentation.
The Idea to build a sense of intrigue through sound and vision is played out  in this video,
For me it works so well, who is he, how does he relate to the singer, how does he relate to the allusions of the song and where will he take us.
Any how Ian has chosen now to release this song on youtube, and because of its spiritual nature this is probably the ideal time for this release. In order for it to succeed and raise the profile of this fantastic singer to the national level he deserves this project needs your shares.
Please go to the youtube page direct from this link and follow the links to embed  and share the work in your social networking feeds.

I will keep you all posted on where the work takes us.
Loads of love to you all,
David

BEYOND LEAVING iii

 Beyond Leaving will be at exhibition in the National Photographic Archive, Temple Bar, Dublin,
from November to early March 2017. It is the biggest Irish platform to date for my work. The installation will feature some 25 new large scale photographic works, video, and artifact generated over the  period of net emigration from 2009 to 2016. Thanks to all who pledged support to the  Fund: it , campaign, although it is now finished you can see the details here click here to have a look



On the 24th of August 2016 the Central Statistics Office of Ireland ( CSO )made a very important announcement. It was this. To the year ending in April 2016 there was a return to net inward migration for Ireland for the first time since 2009.

The tone of this announcement is reflected in the global Irish Newsletter from the office of the Junior Minister with responsibility for the Diaspora in which the headline events are the Fleadh Cheoil, The Rose of Tralee, and the All Ireland Hurling and Camogie finals. Granted there is articles about the Irish Australian Support and Resource Bureau, Melbourne, Australia, and the upcoming United Nations Migration Conference, but the emphasis here is on the other and not the self.  And although the issues around Irish migration have proven to be thorny over the years, the discussion about world migration is far bigger than any conversation we could have about the current Irish experience. So this months newsletter amounts to one thing, deflection.
Although there is still the small mater  of the 76,200 people who left here in that year there was in fact the small number of 3,100 more people entering the country than those who have left.
This signals the end of a cycle.
We can now quantify the movements of this period. In fact the CSO has done this for us and I suppose having things  tied up neatly with a bow is what the we as consumers of the media and presented fact demand! I will only present one figure from the chart below and the rest can be extracted by your own gaze. The light blue of the period of net emigration adds up to half a million people.

Looking beneath the surface of the Irish experiences at this point is  an essential part of building an understanding of  of this period of net emigration. Following on from my personal project On Leaving, I have been working on a further research project with some of the recently departed and some of those who have chosen to return home. The work has been conducted as part of  IADT Dun Laoghaire practice led research project and I am grateful for the guidance and counsel of both Dr. Mark Curran and  Dr. Justin Carville as I move towards exhibition of these work.
The video clip above is a short extract of some conversations had with some of my collaborators.
 Thank you for reading this post and I would be delighted to receive your comments and of course your support  for the fundit campaign at http://fundit.ie/project/beyond-leaving

BEYOND LEAVING ii

Its been such a pleasure being back in an exhibition space, showing work, talking with those who came to see it, or who just ventured in after they had lunch in the building, or indeed, after they had visited EPIC. I am delighted and excited about the response to the work and feel assured that audiences will be very interested in the next step along this road to understanding what in fact it is to be a modern Irish person. Either here or there!
To this end I am now introducing Beyond Leaving  and the concept behind my next show. A couple of years ago now I set off on a new smaller, but a little more rigorous research, to try and fathom the distance between  expectation  and the reality of today for a small group of people who collaborated with me in the production of the Leaving Dublin series.
This research will culminate in a show in the National Photographic Archive this coming November.
The show will feature new photographic works, video, interview, audio-visual, and research documentation.
One strand of these works will be a series of skype interviews which have been made with collaborators. The clip here is demonstrative of the many ways that this kind of communications can be laborious and unfruitful and it can sometimes be hard to realise ones intent.However as              e-communication platforms expand there are now several alternative ways to talk with video  to people all over the world, facetime, whats app, facebook messenger video,  and google hangouts all look like making this area of communications easier and more fruitful into the future.

So here is my opener, my first piece so to speak.
I hope you enjoy it and what it has to say.
there is lots more to come in this stream.
Please like ans share and as alway your comments will be appreciated and replied to as they will help  to shape the process of making the exhibition.

With thanks
David

LUNCH WITH SOME ART ON THE SIDE?

The chq Building on Dublin's Custom House quay has recently being transformed  once more as times and peoples tastes change. From 19th century stack house, to  a Celtic Tiger born shopping mall in the early 2000's,  to a mixed use space including some retail, cultural spaces, and a very large tech co-working space called Dog Patch Labs. The most recent addition is Epic Ireland, which offers visitors Dublins most immersive visitor experience  as they explore the unique global journey of the Irish people.
It was with that in mind that the management of the chq building were approached and the idea of hosting a show of On Leaving was floated by my partner/producer Carole Caprani.  The team there were enthusiastic. It was felt that a certain amount of synergy could be harnessed by both exhibits which are indeed  proving to be complimentary.  The work was hung on Saturday and Sunday the 14th and 15th of May by Ian Monahan and Adam Abuzenan and the show opened it's doors to the public the following day.  I was in the USA for this first few days, (more about that in the next few posts), but returned on Friday morning in time for the opening reception which happened between 17.30 and 20.00 that evening. 
I was delighted that Irish Times journalist and curator of the blog Generation Emigration, Ciara Kenny enthusiastically accepted my invitation to open the show and she made some very good points about the common ground we share in telling the story of the individual. I would echo that our position is very important in  the age when people  are fed generalisations about things such as migration, migrant culture and the realities of modern life.  Series like Generation Emigration and indeed my work play an important part of debunking the myths spun out in other areas of the media 
which paint a monotone picture of our society. Testimony featured on Generation Emigration has played an important part in keeping the absent present in our  national consciousness  and for that we should all be very grateful.  

On the night although slightly jet lagged I really enjoyed showing the work to guests who had never seen the work before, and introducing the other strands of the piece to those who were only familiar with the leaving Dublin Series.  Indeed I have had three full days already in the space talking endlessly with enthusiastic viewers of the work who in some cases only ventured into chq just to get a bite to eat. In fact, nipping into chq for a bite to eat should be the start point.The work should be something there to  be discovered and in this location I am delighted to be the perfect filling to a lunchtime sandwich treat. There are indeed some great places to eat in the building and everyday the concourse is filled with happy workers from the offices and businesses close by doing just that.  I suggest you join them over the next two weeks and finish lunch off with a look at at ON LEAVING,  and maybe even a visit to the vaults which now house EPIC, the story of our diaspora and how it has shaped the world in which we live.

Big thanks to Paul Mc Carthy for the photos (I owe you one for sure) and to all who turned up on the night. I really appreciate it. Tune in here over the next few weeks for some tales of adventure. Please share and comment on this post below and get your friends together and go for a bite in the chq and drop in for a long (or short) discussion  with me, I will be there till 4th June 11.00 - 16.00 daily..

Thanks again to all
David

ON LEAVING

I am so delighted to be announcing the first showing of On Leaving In my hometown, Dublin, the place where the work for the large part was conceptualised and made.
True a component part of the project, Leaving Dublin, was shown there in the  National Photographic Archive as part of the photoIreland festival show Living-Leaving   in 2012. But the show of all three components of the greater photographic project did not come together until October 2013 when I was invited to assemble a solo show for Siamse Tire, in Tralee Co, Kerry.
As this show came together on site the plan for a book of On Leaving evolved over the stay in Kerry where I  designed and  then Installed the show with  the help of fellow photographer Lanka Perren. From that day my mission was to work on pulling the final components of the work together by traveling and making the remaining portaits and Landscapes  needed to cradle the texts which were slowly coming into view. It took a further year of travel and the intervention of superbly thought out design by Niall McCormack to bring the book On Leaving into existence. Terrifically printed by Nicholson Bass in Belfast  this book was named  the best printed book of the year In 2015 by the print industry of all Ireland.
 The Book On Leaving is the reason for this presentation of the work in Dublin. The existence of Epic Ireland in the vaults of the chq building the reason for showing the work  in this location. And the  time is now right  to show the work to a bigger audience  as it  appears things are returning to normal in Ireland at this time.
As we all know appearances can be deceptive so we have to be aware of all that has happened to the people of Ireland over the last eight years or so. On Leaving provides a lens through which we can look back over  this latest twist in the tale of the Irish Diaspora. During the period of the show the book will be available to contextualise the work which hangs in the large gallery space on the ground floor of the chq building.
I am grateful to  Carole Caprani who arranged the show and to Ian Monahan for   frame design,  providing the soundtracks to many manifestations of the work and  for  hanging the work with    Adam Abuzenan, and to  Pete Smyth for texting us up.

The book is on sale during the show period and I hope viewers of the exhibition take advantage of the special exhibition offer to push the book out throughout the world( it's a free postage offer)
I also hope that a a big group of you the readers of this blog turn up on the night of the launch on Friday the 20th of May 2016 to celebrate all of those people who took part and collaborated in the work that has become On Leaving. The work wil be introduced by Ciara Kenny, journalist and editor of the Irish Times Generation Emigration Blog
I hope to see you there!
Thanks
David

IT IS ALL HERE! RIGHT NOW!

Almost three years ago now I planned this video piece and prepared it in its first form for St Patrick's day projections around the world.Having finished  shooting the series in summer 2013 I re-edited the work to include all of the works ( the count went from 75 to 84in the intervening period)
This piece was used in the first On Leaving show in Siamse Tiré,Tralee,co Kerry.
With all the contributors thanked in the acknowledgements of the book On Leaving,  I felt the time was right for one final re-edit so as  to slowly name all of the sitters on a list in the form of the credits at the end of this piece.On the night it gave me such pleasure to see this come together. I beamed with pride to hear two fantastic pieces of music by my collaborator Ian Monahan Echo loud and sure all around meeting house square.
And so for all,of you who came down on the night a big thanks.For those of you who could not make it, the video played on the night is here and the book is available for immediate shipping from onleaving.com
I Have resisted placing this projection piece online till now, I hope you all enjoy it!
Please comment freely, It helps to work it all out!

ON LEAVING AGAIN!

Claire Weir and Brian Maxwell returned home, in love, from London together some months ago.
Having evaluated the situation here and the difficulties involved in finding meaningful employment
they have decided to move to Perth.Western Australia.
Claire has lived there twice before as a child and when she finished college some years ago she spent over a year there before moving home, and then moving to London.
Indeed I first made contact with Claire when she was living in Freemantle just outside Perth. She had seen and liked my work on the net and started a conversation about it and photography in general. Little did i know then that I would photograph her for my series, when she returned home with Brian, and now as she is about to leave with only a few days left in Ireland.
Not a voluntary parting as Claire and Brian would be happy to stay here if work was plenty and they could have a comfortable life.But its not to be.

BACK IN SYNC!

 with this post I hope to catch up  as I draw closer to the end of the first series of leaving Dublin images. 84 will be the final total(83 published here to date) after three years and three months of shooting.

As with any large body of work there are anomalies when following a stringent M.O.and these two images fell out of sync with the blog because of other pressing issues with the work.

Exhibition preparation for example may have got in the way or a lack of fulfilment re release papers.

All is good now and I offer my apologies to all concerned.

                                             

Juan Miguel Gonzalez was photographed outside his apartment in Malahide before leaving after years working as an economist in a business in the town.He had been there for several years but now with his parents getting older,and the economy getting tighter, he felt it was time  to trip back to home.The beautiful city of Valladolid, Spain.

RELATIVITY!

Yes! the internet makes the world a smaller and much more accessible place that's the truth.
Sure it's that concept which breathed life into my own blog, The Lilliputian, a photographic blog for the small world.
It's only when I stepped outside my hall door in Dublin and put one foot after the other that the scale of the world re-established itself in my head.
I have been away for over 8 weeks now and I have visited so many fantastic people in so many cities.
It took 23 hours to shoot us across the world to the Immigration Museum in Melbourne. Once arrived there Jet Lag and the hard work of winding up publicity to the opening of the "Leaving Dublin" exhibition immediatly took its toll and wiped out the first 12 days of the journey. (But what a 12 days!!)
It was only a week and a half into the trip that I started to wake up as I prepared to travel off to visit some of my sitters who had settled in Australia and New Zealand.

ON WE GO! FULL STEAM AHEAD!!

This next post brings together a lot of strands of the leaving dublin project.
Here we pause to take stock of all that has happened to date.
Make some new work.
And set out the plans for the way forward.
Lots has happened since my proposal back in february 2010 in my own life and indeed in the lives of my sitters.
Watching as they weave there new route through life I have come to accept that this is the natural order of things.
In Ireland we are at the mercy of all sorts of external influences and as the international markets agitate against the Euro we are in a very sad state,but no worse than before and Ireland and the Irish will abide. We must deride those who sold us the false dreams of 1973,and Indeed Lisbon 2 in 2009 just before the real slide started.We are now strapped fully to the E.U.mast and must take whatever come its way with no real say anymore. C'est la vie.
Julie Mitchel married last weekend,Tady Walshes wife Milena just gave birth in Quimper ,France, Gareth Doolin just posted a happy picture of himself and his daughter Macey on Facebook,Linda dePaor settled in New Zealand and has given birth to a beautiful baby boy since!!
So goes it and as the months and years pass by the lives of my sitters tell to me the story of the new Irish, rising,moving and overcoming adversity.Their stories into the future  are for me what is important so it is my plan now to follow and document further the lives of my sitters and to follow them to the four corners of the world to see how they are getting on.
Some initial manoeuvres have been carried out back home and I am glad to report that Jacinta Sheerin,Ryan Cronin Neilan,and Conor mc Mahon are all doing well.
I have just made my first European visit yesterday I visited Tady Walsh, Milena and their baby hopefully this is the forerunner to  a serious session to follow in october in Australia and Possibly New Zealand!!
On my return to Ireland at the end of the month I will endeavor to document the early morning emptiness of all of the sites used to date for the leaving dublin project,hopefully the weather will be on my side!!
The Shot above is of Louise Haslett ,her daughter Ella,and her son Ewan.
Louise and co have by now departed for Brisbane Australia,her husband left ahead of them to set things in order while Ella was completing her Junior cert.
I talked at length with Louise about her departure and she told me that Although things were tough in her profession right now(she is an architect) finance was not he primary motivator for her move.But,the current sentiment in our country has made it easier for people like Louise to think of life further afield and to consider all sorts of different scenarios as an improvement of their lot.
The work was made in their back garden in Swords.Ewan skates on a Rich Gilligan inspired home skateboard ramp!!
I hope too to catch up with Louise and to meet with her family and her husband George once I arrive in Australia in october.
On the night of the shoot we were being filmed for a documentary by film maker Donald Taylor Black.
With a working title of 'Stuffing The Tiger' Donald is mapping a picture of the crash by making observations on several artists reactions/work  across several disciplines.
During the course of his filming he has focused on four photographic projects and I pride myself on being in the good company of Mark Curran,Anthony Haughey,Sean Hillen.
Donald and his crew Paddy and Carl joined my self and Carole for dinner after an interview and before the shoot.It was a very enjoyable meal for all and the night continued in a happy tone right up to Louise's house were we found herself and Ewan and Ella ready and in great form,expectant for a bright future in Australia.
Ray and my own brother Ian looked after lighting on the night and Ian actually made a good connection with Donald  and hopefully some of his original music will be used in Donalds upcoming documentary.
So after a fantastic show in Dublin this July and with more to come in Australia in october and around Ireland next year now is no time to be resting on the laurels so On we go. Full Steam Ahead!!

As always shares on fb and twitter are available on the top right of the page and comments are always enjoyed and responded to.

LEAVING DUBLIN LAUNCHES TO A WALLSPACE IN A GRAND STYLE

wrapped

1/20 scale editing

ON YOUR MARKS!!

One night last February I met with Darragh Ross and his good friend Kenny D'Arcy the Pair where ready to travel off to Australia in a matter of days and we had a long chat on the beach,before and after their respective photos where made.
Darragh an electrician\electrical engineer, was looking forward, (as was his friend Kenny) to plying his trade once more in Australia.Neither of them had the opportunity to do what they were trained to do at home as work had completely dried up for both in Ireland,leaving Darragh working in his local Mace service station.Now although he is saddened to leave his family and friends,and angered that our economy has left him booking this trip,Darragh is excited at the prospect of being out in the great wide open doing his thing and looking for his place in the whole big scheme of things!On your marks!! you might say as they line up to sprint away to give their youth energy and enthusiasm to Australian society.
Our Loss their gain!!

NOT QUITE HOW I EXPECTED THINGS TO WORK OUT!!

Meet Kenneth D'arcy a Man who had to finish a course in building services engineering after the crash.
A man who's lifestyle choice came down to working in Domino pizza in swords or emigrating to Australia to work as a building services engineer! Yes it is all about choices!But you know there are factors which turn you one way or the other in this case Kenny was looking for a little fulfillment,self-esteem,and a firm future without the threat of the rug being pulled from under him! So he is gone like so many others to Australia.On the night he presented himself in good humor but I could feel the sense of resentment towards the establishment here in Ireland. Here is what he had to say" I feel like I don't have a choice anymore.If I want a career in engineering I have to leave. I KNOW I HAVE NO FUTURE IN IRELAND!!!
I really hope some day Kenny can come back and contribute to the next phase of the Irish success story.But my instinct tell me he will be in Melbourne for some years!!

OFF WE GO AGAIN!

I have to say the experience of shooting the leaving Dublin project has been for me a huge process.

On one hand you have the technical,the logistical,the weather,the locations,The Timing,the edits,the posts.

On the other hand you have the emotions,the people,the kinship,understanding,camaraderie,the empathy.

BLESSED BY THE MOON

Some weeks ago myself,Ray Hegarty,and Ian Monahan met with Elaine Bannon,A youth worker on her way to Australia.
on Elaines request we had made a plan to shoot at Kilmainham Gaol ,scene of many a killing and hotbed of English suppression of Irish rebels during the heady days of the Irish colony.
On arrival at the proposed site we found that an illegally parked car had scuppered our original plan to make a shot featuring the large wooden door at the end of the prison building(just like several other great Irish plans, fate fiddled it all up,we all should pay more attention to the laws of probability!).
But as good forward planning always counts for something,We had a contingency plan,to shoot a long shot along the long wall, that went all the way to Kilmainham courthouse.
Well,on we went,we welcomed Elaine onto the pitch and set about getting set up! She chatted with Ian and Ray about all that was going through her head and how as her departure date got closer ,she was feeling the sense of fear rising in her,fear of the unknown,fear of what the future held for her,fear for what her life had to become in the future.But all in a good way!

ON THE SUBJECT OF THE LIFESTYLE CHOICE!

Well its been a while. But here I go!
The last government of Ireland had numbed me, so much so that I became immune to their rantings, their obvious detachment, the silly unfounded statements and ridicuolus actions.
So when the new crew came along in a way I felt sorry for them and the mess they had taken on.
But the beast in me has been reawakened by our now minister for finance Michael Noonan and his leader Enda Kenny.
I suppose you could say I have had an epiphany on the road to the Malahide estuary to photograph another of our kind.  A hard working, loving, vibrant, reality, being forced to turn away and seek  feelings of worth in a mine in Perth Australia.
Oh now I realise what an empty system Irish democracy has evolved into.

GRADUATE GHOSTOWN

Meet Naoise Mc Gee, a recent college graduate in Film and Russian. Naoise is on her way to the busiest city in the world so it's a good job that she worked at Mao Restaurant where things are always full of hustle and bustle. Naoise lived until now on Killiney Hill and the view from her window included the Pigeon House Station. Like Marie Carroll, she decided that close to these tubes would be a good landmark for her to sit  for her glorious parting shot. Pensive is the word she actually used as she glanced at my mac screen after the shoot. She had to say that she loves Dublin, but with so many of her friends gone it seems like a ghost town (70,000 left in the last 12 months alone).

NEW YEAR TRAFFIC!

Welcome to the second post of 2012. This one has been a while coming as things have been fairly hectic around my studio since the New Year kicked off. I have been very active over the last 5 or six weeks trying to arrange projections of a new video piece in some locations around the world.
So far four have been arranged and hopefully there will be news of more as the weeks pass by to the screening dates in March next. So far we have commitments from Melbourne Australia, Edinburgh Scotland, Alabama, U.S.A. and  Minas Gerais Brazil.  I am standing by for news from London, Bristol, New York and Chicago.

PLEASE CALL!!

 

I have got to say a big thanks to all at the Irish Times for affording me my first ever Full page broadsheet piece(web version here)Thanks Ciara and the features Editor for elaevating my project.
One of my main reasons for making contact with the paper was to let more peole know about my project and to let them  know that the project was still going.
I am still shooting and I would like more sitters to get in touch with me.
So if there is anyone you know who is about to make this big move please point them to this page or my viewbook site where thy will find my contact details.
you can find me at dmon@me.com or call on 087 2247020
You can be guaranteed of a great night shoot and a fantastic momento of a time of significant meaning in your own personal history.

OVER THE BRIDGE!!

its been over 3 weeks since my last post and I am feeling a little withdrawn,but really glad to be back tonight.
I got caught up chasing a load of books around a copy stand and it took up way more time than it was supposed to.So sorry to any one who may have been hanging on for a post!! Sorry especially to Tady Walsh and his Wife Milena who I photographed some 4 weeks ago before they departed for Quimper
in Brittany(France).