Project#7

An exhibition of new work by Emma Haugh

This exhibition took place during April 2011

This was the first solo project for artist Emma Haugh since graduating from The Dublin Intstitute of Technology with a BA Honours Degree in Photography in 2010. This being the case, Haugh has been involved in and associated with Photography, Club promotion, Dj-ing, Theatre and Performance alongside Youth and Community Arts Training for more than fifteen years.
Haugh continues to practice as a photographer but has shifted her attention from the documentation of events to a more speculative investigation that uses more than just photography as a means to communicate her personal experiences and observations of sub - cultures.

Exhibition Description from press text,
This exhibition uses two rooms at the top of a building on Burgh Quay in Dublins city centre. After climbing the stairs to the top floor one enters a studio space where a series of photographic portraits are exhibited.  When passing through the building  one can hear the sound of repetitive music resonating from some place. Once in the exhibition space It becomes apparent that the music is coming from the room below. In fact, as part of the development of this project the artist worked together with two Dublin based music producers (Philip Stewart and Peter O’Neill) to create an eight minute techno dance track. The photographic portraits were captured using only an intermittent strobe light to illuminate the subjects while they danced to the  hard and repetitive beats of the track in almost total darkness. It is possible to return down the stairs and enter the room below to investigate where the sound is coming from.

According to the artist,

How we shape our cultural environment and how it shapes us is an ongoing balancing act of resistance and acceptance, vastly complex networks of cultural data are relentlessly disseminated and cognized. The internal life of the individual in relation to their surrounding cultural environment is an important thematic in my engagement as an artmaker.

The appropriation and production of photographic images, slogans, texts, music, web - based materials and specific social environments are some of the forms that I exploit in order to create small moments of resistance, questioning and remembering.

www.emmahaugh.com
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