Ink

At the beginning of the 19th century, one of the most significant acts of colonisation began; the mapping of the entire British Empire. Using the island of Ireland as a testing ground for their tools and methodology, a specially created group from the British military, known as the ‘Ordnance Survey’ (OS) began the largest and most comprehensive cartographical undertaking the world has ever seen.

The resulting maps and archive attempted to document a land and its people through a carefully constructed prism of colonial superiority. Through this prism the survey wrote its own version of Irish history, this resulting ‘history’ had an unprecedented affect on how the island would develop culturally, geographically, and politically.

I followed a map which listed the original triangulation points used to create the first OS map of the island the Ireland. Some images are from the triangulation points themselves and others are from the journey between the points. Each image of a geographical feature, although not necessarily a site of significant cartographic importance was at one time studied, measured, drawn, translated, and reinterpreted on a piece of paper by a foreign colonial power.

By folding and layering my images, I am collecting, constructing, and reinterpreting the land and people I met throughout my journey. This construction mirrors the work of the OS but acts as a counter-balance to their subjective interpretation of the land. By reframing the landscape in the context of a cultural construction, the work brings into question the origin of such construction and the rights of those who claimed to exclusively control how the landscape should be represented.