∆ 1 Line of Enquiry

During Positions through Iterating, Contextualising and Essaying my studio work was grounded in a growing bibliography of relevant sources. This pool of existing knowledge included historical documents, poetry, academic writing, archives and others design practices. These references were pulled apart and relayered to piece together the history of The Stone Cottage.

This collection of sources was expanded during the Positions through Dialoguing work. In an effort to refine the line of enquiry within my studio work, I returned to my bibliography and began to index the key references into place, memory and writing. These three terms, introduced by Perec (1999) as methods to document ageing, have guided my archival practice thus far. This exercise revealed the intersections between the three methods of documenting ageing, and encouraged a further consolidation of the references which have the most relevance to my work.

Through this index, I rediscovered the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland’s online platform ‘Gleanings and Fragments from the Censuses of Ireland, 1813-1891’ (no date). The website is contextualised by the 1922 Fire that destroyed The Public Records of Ireland. The map layers surviving fragments of documents to glean a better understanding of the history, and historiography, of Ireland. 

There is thematic overlap between my own studio based practice and ‘Gleanings and Fragments from the Censuses of Ireland, 1813-1891’ (no date). I am interested in understanding how I can address the gaps in the archive and reinstate knowledge that perished within the fire. To document this emerging line of enquiry, I wrote a short synopsis about my intentions for the ∆ 1 studio enquiry. 

Reference List:

Lloyd, D. (2008) ‘Overture: Ruins/Runes’, in Irish Times: Temporalities of Modernity. Dublin: Field Days Publications.

Perec, G. (1999) ‘Species of Spaces’, in Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. London: Penguin, pp. 46–56.

Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland (no date) Gleanings and Fragments from the Censuses of Ireland, 1813–1891. Available at: https://virtualtreasury.ie/gold-seams/census-gleanings (Accessed: 6 May 2026).