Abstract
Place Identity: Growing Up English, Always Slightly Irish is a photoetching and letterpress print that investigates the complexities of dual heritage and the formation of identity, particularly from the perspective of a second-generation Irish individual growing up in England. This work engages with the layered experience of belonging to two cultural traditions simultaneously, exploring how identity is negotiated between a dominant culture and a familial heritage that feels both intimately known and yet distanced.
The process of combining photoetching and letterpress is significant: photoetching, with its capacity to capture detailed imagery, and the use of letterpress printing, traditionally associated with permanence and communication, provides a material presence to words and ideas that are often relegated to memory or emotion. The dialogue between image and text in the work reflects the tension and interplay between assimilation and difference.
Growing up English but carrying an ever-present "slight" Irishness evokes a sense of in-betweenness, neither fully one thing nor the other, a state frequently experienced from diaspora. Place Identity: Growing Up English, Always Slightly Irish becomes both a personal and collective narrative, inviting the viewer to consider how cultural identity is shaped, transmitted, and continually reinterpreted across generations.
Space Place Practice is an artists’ research hub which comes together to create dialogues and to develop projects informed by a shared interest in notions of space, place and creative practice.
place: identity Is the fourth publication that Space Place Practice have collated together. Members were invited to make an initial response to the project title describing a particular place that was important to them or central to their thinking. There was no limit on style; members could submit either an academic essay, creative writing, a visual, poetic, or a combination of ways to explore “identity” in relation to their specific place.
The process of combining photoetching and letterpress is significant: photoetching, with its capacity to capture detailed imagery, and the use of letterpress printing, traditionally associated with permanence and communication, provides a material presence to words and ideas that are often relegated to memory or emotion. The dialogue between image and text in the work reflects the tension and interplay between assimilation and difference.
Growing up English but carrying an ever-present "slight" Irishness evokes a sense of in-betweenness, neither fully one thing nor the other, a state frequently experienced from diaspora. Place Identity: Growing Up English, Always Slightly Irish becomes both a personal and collective narrative, inviting the viewer to consider how cultural identity is shaped, transmitted, and continually reinterpreted across generations.
Space Place Practice is an artists’ research hub which comes together to create dialogues and to develop projects informed by a shared interest in notions of space, place and creative practice.
place: identity Is the fourth publication that Space Place Practice have collated together. Members were invited to make an initial response to the project title describing a particular place that was important to them or central to their thinking. There was no limit on style; members could submit either an academic essay, creative writing, a visual, poetic, or a combination of ways to explore “identity” in relation to their specific place.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2025 |