One historian, writing of the recent spate of Famine commemorations, comments: "Despite all the activity and the publicity, much about the Great Famine remains hidden, waiting to be discovered and studied." For his exhibition, Reminders, photographer Alan O'Connor has taken up the challenge of making seen the unseen in a startling exhibition of quiet, depopulated images.
In the past, artist Alanna O'Kelly has produced photographic work depicting Famine sites. Her assumption, it seemed, was that something about the lie of the land, the contours of a hill, the colours of a rock, would speak about the history which had unfolded over it. A Famine gravesite, even if more or less resembling an adjacent field, might reveal something of the story of a starving people.
Alan O'Connor's small, square, richly-composed monochromes seem to be aiming at the same effect of translation, even if the photographer for the most part prefers to look at the built environment for his evidence.
O'Connor, an Irish photographer with the Katz agency, spent a year searching Ireland for sites and structures. This show collects together his findings in what amounts to a map of quiet horror.
The significance of some loose stones, or even a patch of damp, may not ordinarily be recognised, but their presence cannot be ignored when added up in O'Connor's portfolio. Walls seem to weep black rot, bushes to scream against grey skies, and all around stones lie in disarray.
The show becomes not simply about the sites or about the Famine; nor simply about the mingling of past and present, or about interpretation and expectation. It is also about the way a camera, a photographer and an audience make history together.