Exploring Liverpool's Irish heritage through 'Revealing Trails'
A guest blog post by Tadgh Devlin, Lecturer in Digital Imaging and Photography at the Hugh Baird University Centre.
This summer, I was fortunate enough to collaborate with a local community group who have Irish Heritage as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival. This was set up via Liverpool Central Library. The group came together with a goal to create art that tells the story of Liverpool’s Irish History and help the modern viewer to connect with it.
Working closely with the community during July, we used our photography studio at Hugh Baird University Centre (thank you to Stephanie, Director of Higher Skills, for letting us use the space!) to create cyanotype images from the group’s family photos. We then installed and filmed the cyanotypes across different locations in Liverpool. To add depth to the project, I asked each participant to reflect on their family history and write down questions they wished they could ask but can no longer get answers to. I also asked them to direct some of those questions to their ancestors who arrived in the UK in the 1840’s. These questions then helped to form a supporting book I created for the participants called ‘There’s no one left to ask’.
The work was created as part of an app that was used to promote the Famine Trail, that showcases Liverpool’s rich Irish connections and history. The famine trail featured a series of plaques commemorating the great hunger of the 1840s and were located throughout the city. Each artist involved was given two of the plaques to create a visual response too. For example, one of the plaques I was given was Clarence Dock, which marks the location of where 1.3 million Irish People entered Liverpool in the mid 1800s. Some of these people continued to America but a many made Liverpool their home.
The project was a great success. It was included in the Liverpool Irish Festivals Newspaper and featured in a summer edition of Art in Liverpool. I also took part in creating a short film where participants read aloud the names of those buried in St Anthonys Church. This was layered over visuals of the cyanotypes to create a powerful visual and served as an elegy for those lost to the great hunger. You can view the video below.
To find out more about the Revealing Trails Project, visit: https://www.liverpoolirishfestival.com/events/revealing-trails/.
If you are interested in studying Digital Imaging and Photography, you can find out more about the courses offered at Hugh Baird University Centre here.
