‘A forgotten generation – 100 years history of rural community and agricultural relics in Co. Laois’, an exhibition by photographer Annie Holland at the ICA hall, Durrow, is running until this August bank holiday Monday from 2:00p.m to 5:00p.m daily, as part of the Durrow Scarecrow Festival.
Holland is currently the recipient of the ‘Artist in the Community’ grant from the Arts Council and together with Durrow Development Forum in Laois, she set up a series of meetings earlier this year with older people from the area at the local Aylward’s Rural Heritage Museum.
She recorded conversations using video, audio and photography of their responses to the relics in the museum which is owned by PJ and Marion Aylward. Some people were visited in their own home for the making of the exhibition.
“We came up with the idea of creating participants’ own artistic responses to these recordings. This will happen in the near future and will feature on a series of 10 old ceramic plates digitally printed with sketched portraits of participants and will be exhibited on an old style dresser at Aylwards in a permanent display at the museum afterwards,” Holland said.
“The digitally printed ceramic plates will serve to visually commemorate the creative contributions of all participants.
“We hope it will serve as an artistic living legacy for the future generations of the community and have the potential to change the way we view the cultural wealth of our elderly and indeed our past.
“Ireland’s population stands at five million, with approximately 10% over 70 and most living in rural areas. The participants’ traditional ways do not sit so easily with today’s Ireland.
“To younger generations, their sepia hued world of thatch cottages is often difficult to comprehend.
“The main aim is to capture and preserve their stories of difficult yet simpler times and reconnect them with modern generations through the medium of documentation and art,” Holland added.
“Hopefully through engagement with the relics from Aylward’s museum, stories will be shared that lead to other accounts of traditional arts such as weaving, thatching, building cocks of hay and digging turf,” Holland said.
Further information on ‘A forgotten generation’ is available from [email protected]