Emma Spreadborough, Untitled, from the series You Mustn't Go Looking, 2022-ongoin

Photo Museum Ireland is delighted to present the first solo Irish exhibition of Emma Spreadborough’s You Mustn’t Go Looking, an imaginative body of work that draws on the remnants of ancient tradition to address contemporary experience in Northern Ireland. Spreadborough takes inspiration from the writing of Brian Friel and his concern for the magical past in Ireland’s present-day culture. Friel’s play, Dancing at Lughnasa, explores Ireland’s mix of religion and politics and how these factors play out within the home. Using interior, domestic spaces as an analogy for safety, structure, and control, where, beyond the relative safety of the home, the landscape is regarded as dangerous and Pagan.

Spreadborough’s work explores a similar tension in her own upbringing through the evocation of the supernatural in Northern Ireland’s mythical landscape. Staged and performative scenes suggest a haunted realm of possibility within the everyday, with echoes of half-forgotten folk customs and children’s games, that reflect a wider search for meaning and connection. The forensic, seemingly objective style of these images is undercut by the dream-like, theatrical quality of the scenes being shown, blurring the line between fiction and reality. These enigmatic rituals bring the threatening, chaotic elements of the outside world into the home, which becomes a place to act out and conquer fears.

To find out more please go to the direct link.