My Sense of Place- Ethnography- Location as site of Identity

I'm working on the concept of the connection with the land as a site of identity. The farm that I grew up on has been in the family for generations. I'm looking at the emotional connection with my home place and the validation of this connection through the work I'm creating.

I collected archival information- rate books, maps and old photographs of various generations that lived and farmed this land.

I started with the maps-maps of Turraheen from the 1840's and 1906. I have a fascination with these maps for a few years now. I love comparing the script and the different style of drawing. I manipulated the maps on photoshop. I inversed the map. I wanted to do an intaglio on a corborundrum board.

I made some silkscreen prints initially on different materials- brown paper & fabriano.

Silkscreen in green

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map on carborundrum


I silkscreened the map onto old slates from the outhouses that have been torn down. I'm looking at preserving the history of the place through art. Others have a more practical approach to the farm and the place that it Turraheen.  For them, it's their daily life. Keeping & maintaining the farm. Nostalgia and memory isn't a priority.

silkscreen map on slates from the outhouses



basic silkscreen of the map

layering maps






Photoshop- layering old photographs, old maps, rate books with the McGrath's name listed as landowners and current photographs of the dilapidated state of the cobblestone yard.



cover of the rate book, the cobbles in their present dilapidated state and the rate books with the McGrath's surname as landowners in the 1840's

rate books, old maps & photographs of the previous generation, with the cobblestone yard in pristine condition

generation previous photographed proudly in front of the homestead on the cobblestone yard, layered with old maps

a section of an old photograph of my grandmother, layered with old map and rate book.

My studio space

photos of obliterated hawthorn woods

familiar piles of wood after a tree massacre

I carved the maps of Turraheen onto the wooden blocks.

collograph boards-corborundrum on pva glue

inverse

collograph print- Turraheen

collograph print

Going up for the cows

screenprint

bitumen screened onto zinc plate for intaglio print

The Creamery Inch

The Pond Field

The Big Bog

The Grandmother's Field

The Well Field

intaglio print