#026 Aoife Herrity (b. 1983), Untitled (Park).

AOIFE HERRITY (IE, 1983)

Untitled (Park) (2020)

Hahnemühle Archival Pigment Print (Photo Rag 308 gsm) A3 size

44 x 32 cm / 17.3 x 12.5 in

Sleeping Dogs Lie

Rumours, secrets and absent memories can affect the stories we tell about ourselves and where we come from. Conflicting narratives, faulty recollections and admonishments often bring unsettling questions to the surface. These lingering questions sometimes reveal gaps; exposing ruptured and converging narratives, causing our personal and family histories to appear as multiple realities. By examining these altered narratives, how and why they are tampered with or ignored altogether can be very revealing. Collective suppression and denial can tap into our deeper instincts tugging at our intuition and implicit memory, leaving us to decipher and reinterpret based on our knowledge at a given time. These uncovered histories can cause agitation and conflict within ourselves and our families; their very presence casting long shadows that follow us into adulthood. Acknowledging the body’s various threat responses and subsequent protective measures invites greater understanding of complex traumatic encounters. Sleeping Dogs Lie explores the darker sides of memory, the suppressed narratives and the vacuum of knowledge surrounding insidious experiences and their aftermath.
 

About the artist

Aoife Herrity is an Irish photographic artist and writer based in Dublin. She holds an MFA in Photography from the Belfast School of Art at Ulster University. In 2021 Herrity was one of the Irish Talents selected by PhotoIreland for the Futures photography platform. Her series Sleeping Dogs Lie was selected as a PhotoIreland TLP Editions publication and was published in 2020. Herrity is a guest lecturer at IADT Dun Laoghaire and has led workshops at the Gallery of Photography, Dublin. Herrity’s work has been shown at a number of exhibitions in Ireland and is held in public collections with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Office of Public Works. Private collections are held in Ireland, Canada and the USA. Herrity’s current area of interest relates to the wider subject of childhood sexual abuse, specifically trauma responses, implicit memory and the grooming process. Much of this work is brought about by research into literature, personal histories and psychology theory. Herrity works with photography, the written word and archival material as a means to unpack and examine these complex histories. Exploring these themes through critical writing is also central to Herrity’s practice.