'Ballymoon Castle'
© Gwen Wilkinson
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Gwen Wilkinson – “Edifice” to be opened by Ian Mitton, Lecturer Photography, Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology on 31st July at 3.00pm.

Edifice explores the built heritage of our rural landscape using a historic photographic process that dates back to the 19th century. From abandoned hillside cottages to relics of great architectural optimism, the images in this series explore aspects of our collective history; memories of conflict and struggle: fortunes lost and gained, monuments that recall a romantic and heroic past.

Edifice is a project that I have been working on since 2009. The collection exists as collodion plates, photographs on glass (ambrotypes), metal (tintypes). The collodion process was invented in 1851. These one-of-a-kind images are made directly on glass and tin plates that have been coated with chemicals, exposed in camera while still wet, and developed on the spot. In recognition for my work on this project I received the prestigious Golden Fleece Award in March 2011.

The spectral images in this series invite the observer to revisit familiar sites, such as the grandiose ruins of Wilton Castle and Ballysaggart Towers and endeavour to reveal an alternative manifestation of these remarkable structures.

This project is designed to be a personal interpretation of what is left at the site of these structures and the feelings and memories they generate. All of the locations are places where I have felt a certain kind of “presence of the past”.

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