Roisin Cork
This work examines the division of the artist’s family archive following her parents’ separation. Though physically separated, the archive holds memories that remain shared, connecting each member of the family.
Drawing on memories found within both parts, the work explores how narrative is constructed and reformed through shared events as common threads. Through the use of projection, the fragile nature of memory is communicated and its ethereal quality highlighting the constant shift between presence and disappearance.
Using her own body as a focus for the projection, the artist becomes an anchor within the archive, positioning herself as an active participant in the shaping of these shared histories.
In Photography I Can Never Deny the Thing That Has Been There
This thesis explores the concept of the family archive as it exists in everyday lives, in the form of family images decorating the walls or dusty shoeboxes hidden in the depths of a wardrobe; but what is its purpose? It considers the purpose of the family archive and examines how a simple image can elicit deep emotions and provide us with complicated and sentimental narratives.
Through a study of my own family archive and text from academics such as Roland Barthes, Marianne Hirsh and Paul Ricoeur, I would like to discuss the narrative surrounding its contents. This emotional and reflective study explores the questions that surround me as an adult and as an artist and it examine the effects of the archive on myself and my family. It explores the family archive as a constructed narrative that provides me with an understanding of my family and my own history.
Roisín Cork is a Dublin based contemporary photographer. Her practice frequently engages with the family archive and how its meaning can change and morph over time and place.
Much of her practice emerges from the emotions evoked as a response to the content and physical materiality of the archive. Combining work across digital and analogue mediums, she investigates the constructed narratives embedded within archival material and the broader world around her, integrating these perspectives into her own visual work using editorial and experimental approaches
