personal – Aisling Keavey

June news

London Creative Network at Four Corners

I have been accepted to a professional development programme at Four Corners photography centre in Bethnal Green. This programme is six months and features workshops, portfolio reviews and business advice for artists. Four Corners encourages artists to work in expanded practices, so I’m using my time to hone my skills in darkroom practice and moving image.

London Creative Network

PhotoIreland Festival

I am exhibiting my triptych of Laura from my series Heartland / Hearth-land at PhotoIreland Festival in Dublin, from the 7th of July to the 28th of August. The exhibition takes place at the Printworks, Dublin Castle. I will also be in Dublin for the professional weekend, on the 15th of July. This is an opportunity for artists to meet cultural professionals and get feedback on their work.

PhotoIreland Festival

JOYA Artist in Residency

I will be in residence at JOYA Art + Ecologica in August. This is a great opportunity to reassess practice and concentrate on other things, since working on one project for nearly three years. I already have three projects I want to work on while there, as well as about five books I haven’t gotten a chance to read yet!

JOYA

Print shop

I have finally made a print shop! I’ll be updating it with new work periodically so check back regularly!

PRINTS

On being in diaspora

MA research, personal

Nguyen, in The Refugees, states that “these invaders came to conquer our land and now would never go home” while speaking of Korea. The same can be said for the British occupation of Ireland. Thinking through diaspora brings up a lot of the same sentiment of “my mind trying to approximate what our lives felt like” before being in diaspora or away from the homeland.

Where is your home if you can’t go back to it?

Is it still home?

Can being in diaspora ever feel like being home?

Is this displacement a permanent feeling?

What is the notion of home referring to? Is it an abstract concept or a concrete feeling?

From now on I’ll be sharing my work in progress field-notes and writing as a way of working through some of the themes cropping up as my research progresses. I’ll be using this blog as a an online journal and visual reference to share writing and references as they come up.

Diary #1

personal, Photography, series

Updates

personal, Photography, updates

Well, long time no speak!

A lot of updates to go though in this post – not least that I’ve just moved back to London after being home in Dublin for six months.

July 2016: we got through the Wimbledon College of Arts degree show (big ups!)

September 2016: moved back to Dublin and tried in vain to get a job in London and in Dublin

March 2017: moved back to London, much to my delight

Also in March: put a deposit down on a studio space at Hotel Elephant in Elephant and Castle (more on that in a later post)

April 2017: turned 26 (boo!)

Also in April: invested in a studio light setup (finally!) – check my Instagram profile

Other things: photo-book dummy. Accidental Journeys is going to be an actual physical BOOK. Thanks to William and Dirty Illness. More on that – process images, sketchbook photographs, design iteration images, and printing – to come in later posts!

Project planning: I shot another roll of HP5 a couple of weeks ago and finally got it processed and printed. I’m so happy with how the images turned out. Check back soon to see it on the website. I’m also planning to have done four projects by the end of 2017, updates on these on the blog as they happen – research, process and final images.

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Process #2

personal, Photography, updates

My degree project was a book documenting the Irish Diaspora’s journeys from Ireland to England. I photographed and interviewed people in the various Irish centers around London: the London Irish Center, the Luton Irish Forum and the South London Irish Association. The book itself was hand-printed and bound but my bookmaking skills are very lacking! As such, I enlisted the help of my friend Chloe (a 2015 UAL Wimbledon graduate in Print and Time-based Media) to help me fix the binding and structure of the book itself.

Chloe won the Wandle Studio Prize for 2015/16 so she has use of a studio space at Merton Abbey Mills where she runs an “alternative book-makery” called Object Book.

I attempted to attach the covers and put too much glue on the front

The binding was too loose so pages would move

Sewing the fourth folio to the third with a kettle stitch

The cross stitch was made by putting the thread through two layers of thread on the folios and making a X shape and tying a kettle stitich

Kettle stitches at the end of each folio

PS: I’m doing photo-book narrative workshops at Object Book on the 6th of August. More details to follow.

2013 in review

personal, updates

Well hello, lovely readers! This little space on the internet has grown a lot over the last year compared to 2012 and for that I’m so grateful, hopefully it will continue to grow in the New Year! I have so much planned for the New Year for this blog so watch this space! For now though, here’s a look back on my 2013 year in blogging.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 710 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 12 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Common History

personal, Photography, updates

Two posts in one night?? Aren’t you all lucky people ;)

my major documentary photography project for my Documentary Practice module in college this semester was to make a book, so that’s what I did. It’s called Common History and it’s on myself and my best friend and I’ve wanted to do it for the longest time! It’s a personal exploration of how when we were babies, we were in the same hospital for the same amount of time (although a year apart), we were treated by the same doctor for visual impairment and yet we each turned out completely differently. The book uses archival images, self-portraits and portraits to tie us together visually.

http://www.blurb.com/books/4214521-common-history

What do you think?

If you liked this, please subscribe, on right <3

A Short Way From Here

personal, Photography, photoshoot, updates

I know you all are sick of me apologising for being a bad blogger so I’m not going to :) Instead, I’m going to let you look at my new book!

It’s a photobook called “A Short Way From Here” and it’s published on Blurb books. This is the result of a photographic project on the seascape and documenting it in an unfamiliar way.

Hope you like it :)

A Short Way From Here by Aisling Keavey | Make Your Own Book

What did you think? Is it too abstract?

If you liked this, please subscribe <3

Malta 2013 (aislingkeaveyart.wordpress.com)
News and luck (aislingkeaveyart.wordpress.com)

Caroline Issa for LK Bennett

personal, updates

I know I haven’t blogged here in nearly month, which is terrible but I’m nearly finished this semester so I’ll be back soon with street style posts (I’m interning at The Fair magazine for the summer as a streetstyle photographer! ) and maybe some daily outfit posts too, so look out for those!

iPhone cases come in all shapes and sizes (and price ranges!) and I’m forever searching for one that protects the phone but also looks stylish and sophisticated. LK Bennett recently sent me out an iPhone case from their collaboration with Caroline Issa (editor of Tank magazine, if you didn’t know!), which I won through a giveaway Canned Fashion held. I absolutely adore this case. It’s sturdy, it’s made of plastic but it doesn’t feel cheap or like it will break easily; with most of my other covers, they feel like one drop would break them! This case hasn’t gotten a scratch on it since I got it! It doesn’t obstruct the volume button, power button, headphone socket or screen at all, which is a major plus; with other case I’ve found myself having to take the phone out of the case to fully use / see (I’m blind as a bat!) the screen properly. Unfortunately, after much searching, I’m not sure these cases are available to buy. The design is beautiful too, this is definitely an iPhone case I’d want to be seen carrying!

_DSC7180

News and luck (aislingkeaveyart.wordpress.com)

Malta 2013

personal, updates

During February, I attended a “creative retreat” in Malta with my friend Kate, her husband and six other artists or “creatives” as Kate liked to call them! While we were there, we had forums on our own work, where we presented the work we had done during the day (each day we were given a word to concentrate on and make art about); visits from local artists and we worked on making the art we had made into a book. The book is finished and hopefully going to be available through Blurb soon!

Now, the photos!