Abhaile (meaning Home in Irish) is a photobook that I produced for my Minor Project for my BA (Hons) Degree in Photography at the Institute of Art, Design + Technology, Dun Laoghaire.. The third book that I have produced in my degree, it is a departure from the documentary style of my previous books and instead focuses on archival practice. The book deals with my identity as an Irish person born in England, my feelings towards growing up in a rural village, alienation, homesickness, rekindling my relationship with my home village in my 20s, family, childhood and familiarizing myself with new places. The book combines family archive images taken and captioned by my parents combined with paired film snapshots from my own archive, captioned in my own handwriting. Interspersed throughout the book, there are also writings on my feelings towards home and where home is. The book was pieced together entirely from archive images, none of my own archive images were intentional recreations of locations. The locations were obviously significant enough in my childhood that I felt a draw to photograph them, which proved really interesting to witness when piecing the book together.
The book is a hardback printed on a beautifully textured Mohawk Superfine Eggshell 148 gsm paper by Blurb in Eindhoven. Produced between September and December 2022.
