The presentation proposal for Limina: Reflections of Identity through the Lens has been selected for the Western Regional American Conference for Irish Studies in September, 2021.
Limina is an evolving body of lens-based artwork in conversation and collaboration with what some Irish traditions might name the Otherworld, that realm of being which co-exists beyond an invisible boundary between the human and the aos sí or spirits of the landscape.
This work explores the complexities of creating ethical art through creative inquiry; negotiating a desire to explore the spirit of the world in which we interact, documenting the fluid moments of connection to the non-human. Examinations of select works from Limina address the artistic process as Irish myth and folklore inform encounters with land, water, animal, and plant spirits and offer insight into a tradition, however fragmented, of land-based ethics.
Portraiture and documentary art risk interpretation as colonial traditions of exoticizing, fetishisizing, and objectifying that which is considered “other,” particularly through an ethnographic gaze. Is it possible to depict the self-told stories of beings outside the anthropocentric realm? If a spirit of “the other crowd” or “the good folk” might be found in any shape, how does one show that spirit and what responsibilities does one have in sharing that story?