Headlands Center for the Arts

Artist Statement

I am a photographic artist and filmmaker continuously drawn to “in-between” spaces. My practice is centered on sustained engagement and dialogues with communities in locations where identity and territory are contested, from Kaliningrad, Russia to the Irish border. Combining still and moving images with stories from individuals, I highlight the contradictions and tenuous relationships between political borders and cultural identity. The uncertainty of identity and belonging is fundamental to my practice, stemming from a childhood spent moving between Ireland, Iraq, and the USA.

While at Headlands

While at Headlands I will develop and review three years of material I have produced for LACUNA, a project considering the physical and psychological impact of partition on children of the Irish borderlands. I am interested in multigenerational legacy of trauma and how it feeds into border spaces. In collaborating with children, I hear narratives in which it is difficult to distinguish their own thoughts from what is ingrained in their psyche. I plan to develop this line of thought further. Returning to the US at a time when the concept of borders, identity, and citizenship are to the fore, will allow me to interrogate my own contested identity in the wider context of my practice.