‘Working Lives’: Exhibition at the National Photographic Archive, Meeting House Square, Dublin

‘Working Lives’ is an exhibition of late 19th/early 20th century images from the National Library of Ireland’s image collection.  Two collections from the library are featured; the Mason and A.H. Poole Collections.

The Mason Collection (1890-1910) consists of 2,144 glass slides relating primarily to the island of Ireland and some to the Isle of man.  The Mason firm was originally established in 1780 and sold scientific, optical and mathematical equipment.  In 1894 the company opened an optician and photographic business and the images on display largely date from the period when they operated as the photographic business.  The collection has been catalogued and digitised and is searchable on http://www.nli.ie.

The Poole Collection originates with the Waterford photographic family business of A.H. poole which operated as a commercial entity with collections in the image spanning the period 1884-1954.

The images from both collections in this exhibition depict working people who came to work at the period spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The period saw significant social upheaval as the political and industrial landscape changed irrevocably; the labour and trade union movement, the ‘Irish’ question, labour law changes…  The images presented fall clearly into the borad area of documentary photography as so clearly described in CHapter 2 (Surveyors and Surveyed) of Photography a Critical Introduction (ed. Liz Wells, Routledge, 2009).  Serendipitously, the Gallery of photography, also in the Meeting House Square, is currently holding an exhibition of documentary photography by Tom Wood (an Irish born photographer) who has spent forty years making images in the Merseyside area of England and which is reviewed here.  Also serendipitously, I happened to have just spent time making my way through Robert Doisneau images in a small book published by Taschen and curated/edited by Jean Claude Gautrand (2012)  Clearly, the subjective documentary style in Doisneau’s work in which the participants are complicit in the image making (see his famous ‘Kiss’ image for an example of this) is far removed from the more, apparently, objective docmenting of working conditions but the roots are the same; the desire to record what is seen in a manner that remains faithful to what the photographer believed was seen.

There are stand out images in this exhibition for all sorts of reasons; working conditions, dress, class divides.  Two images stand out for me; a still life of the various Varian Brush products manufactured by the Varian Brush Company in Dublin at the turn of the century that is similar in appearance and style to the William Henry Fox Talbot ‘The Open Door’ but clearly significantly different in terms of the intent of the photographer.  A second image that was very striking was a collar factory showing stacks of white detachable collars being prepared for shipping.  In one image the social change in a century in Ireland was clear; dress, the dominant role of men, the factory conditions.

The exhibition runs until May 1914.

Tom Wood; Gallery of Photography, Meeting House Square, Dublin

The Gallery of Photography in Meeting House Square in Dublin’s Temple Bar area is currently hosting an exhibition by Tom Wood. Wood was born in the west of Ireland in 1951 but grew up in England.  The exhibition is a reworking of his extensive set of images made over forty years and featuring street life in England.  The exhibition is presented as ‘Men and Women’ without a narrative or chronology and so allows issues of gender to be explored by the viewer as well as allowing glimpses of the relationship between the documentary photographer and the subject.

Serendipitously, the National Photographic Archive, also in the Meeting House Square, is currently holding an exhibition of documentary photography from the national archives entitled ‘working lives’ based on the Mason and Poole collections from the national library of Ireland.  this exhibition features Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th Century. Also serendipitously, at the time of viewing the exhibition I happened to have just spent time making my way through Robert Doisneau images in a small book published by Taschen and curated/edited by Jean Claude Gautrand (2012)  Clearly, the subjective documentary style in Doisneau’s work in which the participants are complicit in the image making (see his famous ‘Kiss’ image for an example of this) is subtly different from Wood’s approach.  Woods imbues his image making with somewhat less humour but similar empathy for example here and here.

The exhibition runs until mid January 2014.