Border Travels and Perception

Last summer, I spent four days traveling along the Irish border on a moped. My goal was to visit every point where the border intersects a road, no small task given the sheer number of B and C class roads in the North of Ireland. These border lands were places to avoid when I was young. Regular reports on BBC Northern Ireland spoke of violence among these areas, of hatred between neighbors with differing beliefs, of murders. Border crossing points were heavily fortified by the British army until the peace agreements of the late 1990’s. The complete visual decommissioning of these border checkpoints was part of the peace agreements. I had a desire to navigate these foreboding lands of my youth, to let the landscape wash over me, to become immersed within it. What I found was the changing rhythm of, what for me, was a compelling landscape. I was also nearly always aware of its darker underside, not so visible in these times of “peace”, but still tangible.



This initial visit was meant to be mostly about the experience and research, but as I traveled and made photographs I became interested in the photographic typology of roadsides that was emerging. This has become a new strand of current work that is running parallel to my main MA project, each strand informing the other from very different perspectives. I am not sure at present what bearing this will have on my final show.



Before I embarked on the trip and also during, I thought I had some idea of how the landscape would look. This was informed through memories of previous trips in northern Ireland and perceived ideas from the television report of my youth, and of course the maps that I had been studying as I traced the route of the border, discovering all the points where it intersected a public roads, the grey veins of a nations life. Because of the slowness of travel and the fact that I was only there to obsorbe the landscape I found that It rarely tallied with my initial picture I had in my head. I was constantly being surprised and reminded to stay visually alert to the unfolding landscape.