Refined Line of Enquiry

Position: a place where someone or something is located or has been put.

The Stone Cottage, Finned, Easkey, County Sligo, Ireland.

The catalogue of bibliographic sources weave together a complex tapestry of the history of the West Coast of Ireland through the lens of one individual derelict cottage. Each element of archival material is incomplete in isolation, only revealing full insight into the history of The Stone Cottage when read in conjunction. 

Position: a particular way in which someone or something is placed or arranged.

Palimpsest is employed as both a subject matter and a method to uncover the layers of history embedded within the fabric of The Stone Cottage. The method of arranging the archival material follows a palimpsestic form, whereby fragments of documents, history and architecture are overlayed to reveal a comprehensive account of history of The Stone Cottage. 

This project is underpinned by the fire which razed The Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922. The surviving artefacts from this disaster are in a state of disrepair, positioning the studio enquiry within growing field of archival work focusing on the restoration of Irish historical documents.

Position: a person’s point of view or attitude towards something.

This project is framed from the position of An Chartlannaí (The Archivist). The viewer is given the  role of An t-Eadar-theangair (The Interpreter). The studio work reflects and speculates the history of The Stone Cottage and its dwellers, with an impetus to palimpsestically reconstruct the fragments of documentation that survived the 1922 fire.

Drawing inspiration from Georges Perec’s (1999) ‘Species of Spaces’, the studio work explores the ageing of The Stone Cottage through place, memory and writing. Utilising visual methods of archiving explored by OK-RM (2023) in ‘Revisiting The Fashion Archive of Francisco Costa’, the fabricated documents are initially catalogued by Perec’s (1999) terms.

The project reignites of the history of The Stone Cottage through collecting and connecting fragments of surviving documentation. Although the project explores The Stone Cottage, it is also a commentary on the wider historiography of the rural West Coast of Ireland. 

Reference List:

OK-RM (2023) 555: Revisiting The Fashion Archive of Francisco Costa. New York: Rizzoli.

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