Martina Cleary is an Irish and Finnish artist, lecturer and researcher, working in the areas of Photography, Film, Video, and new Digital Technologies to create immersive installation environments which explore Memory as a starting point to imagine alternative futures. Her work navigates spaces between the real and fictional, influenced by aesthetic and conceptual ideas drawn from painting, cinema, Jungian psychology, experimental archaeology and Feminist philosophy.
Art Memory Place - Irish Museum of Modern Art, Seminars Series, 2015
The background and context of this research is inspired by questions emerging from my own practi... more The background and context of this research is inspired by questions emerging from my own practice as a visual artist, in which I use archival photographic sources as a starting point to examine interrelationships between the image, place and memory. My concern is in examining how the photograph can function as a reflexive site of mnemonic return, as a trigger, or route to recollection both individual and collective. What is it exactly within a photographs material form, aesthetic construction, or medium specificity that enables such potential? In this paper, I will address these questions through a critical examination of key images created by the American documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, during her work for Life magazine in Ireland in 1954. I will discuss Lange’s visual and conceptual approach, examining how her images created in Ireland resonate with recurring motifs and tropes which have been used to define, construct and consolidate ideas of what constitutes the rural West of Ireland from the historic to the contemporary. In discussing Lange’s work and her visual construction of place, I will examine the influence of Conrad Arnsberg’s anthropological study of 1937, The Irish Countryman, on her vision. I will also draw upon recent writings by Dr. Justin Carville, on photographic visual ethnographies in the Irish context, and his critique of this particular body of Lange’s work as sympathetic, documentary humanism. Here I will also discuss Gerry Mullins 1998 Dorothea Lange’s Ireland, which is the only comprehensive publication of this portfolio, in the context of a recent interview I have conducted with Mullins and my own research at the Lange Archives of The Oakland Museum of California. Finally, in identifying certain visual and conceptual constructions underpinning Lange’s work, I will consider how this knowledge can be applied to my current fieldwork, which includes relational community-based photographic work exploring ideas of memory, family and place in County Clare.
Women’s Aid Ireland noted in their Annual Report (2020), a 43% rise in contacts with the National... more Women’s Aid Ireland noted in their Annual Report (2020), a 43% rise in contacts with the National Freephone Helpline during the Covid-19 crisis. The Irish Government’s report on ‘Domestic Violence in Ireland and Covid-19’ (2020), describes a “horrifying global surge in domestic violence” linked to global lockdowns. In the UK, ONS notes “offences flagged as domestic abuse-related increased each month from April to June 2020”. The evidence of a pandemic in domestic violence, parallel to that of Covid-19 is overwhelming. Meanwhile discussions of recovery are occupied with the reopening of different sectors of society - the practical, functional, logistical and economic indicators of a return to normality. There is little mention of the psychological fallout of what has been experienced, especially for women who have lived through the trauma of domestic violence. For many, it will seem as if progress made has been rolled back decades. In (2011) I completed a two-year arts-based research project, gathering the testimonies of survivors of gender-based and domestic abuse. A commonality within many was the transformative moment when the desire of a mother to protect her daughter, very often marked a turning point. For this conference, I propose to revisit this work, and discuss the symbolic order of the mother, particularly within the myth of Demeter and Persephone, which was central to the work produced. This will include an in-depth look at the hidden history of the psychological and archetypal complex central to this story, and its potential for transformative healing.
Art Memory Place - Irish Museum of Modern Art, Seminars Series, 2015
The background and context of this research is inspired by questions emerging from my own practi... more The background and context of this research is inspired by questions emerging from my own practice as a visual artist, in which I use archival photographic sources as a starting point to examine interrelationships between the image, place and memory. My concern is in examining how the photograph can function as a reflexive site of mnemonic return, as a trigger, or route to recollection both individual and collective. What is it exactly within a photographs material form, aesthetic construction, or medium specificity that enables such potential? In this paper, I will address these questions through a critical examination of key images created by the American documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, during her work for Life magazine in Ireland in 1954. I will discuss Lange’s visual and conceptual approach, examining how her images created in Ireland resonate with recurring motifs and tropes which have been used to define, construct and consolidate ideas of what constitutes the rural West of Ireland from the historic to the contemporary. In discussing Lange’s work and her visual construction of place, I will examine the influence of Conrad Arnsberg’s anthropological study of 1937, The Irish Countryman, on her vision. I will also draw upon recent writings by Dr. Justin Carville, on photographic visual ethnographies in the Irish context, and his critique of this particular body of Lange’s work as sympathetic, documentary humanism. Here I will also discuss Gerry Mullins 1998 Dorothea Lange’s Ireland, which is the only comprehensive publication of this portfolio, in the context of a recent interview I have conducted with Mullins and my own research at the Lange Archives of The Oakland Museum of California. Finally, in identifying certain visual and conceptual constructions underpinning Lange’s work, I will consider how this knowledge can be applied to my current fieldwork, which includes relational community-based photographic work exploring ideas of memory, family and place in County Clare.
Women’s Aid Ireland noted in their Annual Report (2020), a 43% rise in contacts with the National... more Women’s Aid Ireland noted in their Annual Report (2020), a 43% rise in contacts with the National Freephone Helpline during the Covid-19 crisis. The Irish Government’s report on ‘Domestic Violence in Ireland and Covid-19’ (2020), describes a “horrifying global surge in domestic violence” linked to global lockdowns. In the UK, ONS notes “offences flagged as domestic abuse-related increased each month from April to June 2020”. The evidence of a pandemic in domestic violence, parallel to that of Covid-19 is overwhelming. Meanwhile discussions of recovery are occupied with the reopening of different sectors of society - the practical, functional, logistical and economic indicators of a return to normality. There is little mention of the psychological fallout of what has been experienced, especially for women who have lived through the trauma of domestic violence. For many, it will seem as if progress made has been rolled back decades. In (2011) I completed a two-year arts-based research project, gathering the testimonies of survivors of gender-based and domestic abuse. A commonality within many was the transformative moment when the desire of a mother to protect her daughter, very often marked a turning point. For this conference, I propose to revisit this work, and discuss the symbolic order of the mother, particularly within the myth of Demeter and Persephone, which was central to the work produced. This will include an in-depth look at the hidden history of the psychological and archetypal complex central to this story, and its potential for transformative healing.
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Drafts by Dr. Martina Cleary