Text

written by Annabelle Antas

https://www.source.ie/archive/issue57/is57feature_Annabelle_Dalby_07_59_25_14-12-20.php

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Text written by Simon Gould Contemporary Projects Curator

Annabelle Antas works principally with the photographic medium. She has collected found photographic portraits for years and is fascinated by the possibilities for imaginary tales within the now hidden identities of the sitters. In her work she has often presented these or other archival photographs in order to open them up for public questioning, encouraging the creation of invented facts or continuations of personal stories. With this background Dalby was struck instantly by the vast number of photographic images in Galton’s archives. Of particular interest were Galton’s images of families, connected to his contentious work on heredity, in which he has cut out the faces of many of the sitters. While it is the faces that were of main interest to Galton, Dalby was attracted to the discarded images, the unwanted remnants of photograph. For this exhibition Dalby is presenting one one of these cut out images, layering many more images behind the resulting apertures, viewable through various lenses and prisms that magnify, echo and enchance the lost fragments and identities. By emphasising the subjective, Dalby is deliberately questioning all that was not of interest to Galton in his photographic studies around heredity. In this way, Dalby begins a conversation with Galton’s methods, their intentions and the surrounding controversy.