Jessica Flynn
I am a practicing visual artist and photographer based in Dublin. Throughout my experience as a photographer, my practice has mainly been based around the concept of identity and the self-expression of others. A large part of my practice in portraiture is about the embodiment of social issues such as gender inequalities and safety issues related to sexuality and signifiers of femininity. This experience underpins my current focus on my own personal identity and my family history. My project 'Beyond The Walls' gave me the opportunity to attempt to fully grasp how the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland intersects with private lives and personal interactions. While the Troubles in Northern Ireland didn’t directly affect me, they had a great effect on my grandmother Mary and her sister Stella and my family history in general. This project gave me an opportunity to explore my own family history while also getting a chance to build a strong connection with my grandmother. Although my project ‘Beyond The Walls’ is directly in relation to my grandmother and her sister, it is a project I would like to continue further. My family have lived in Derry and Northern Ireland in general for generations and I would like to try encompass that and document it in the same photographic style as my project ‘Beyond The Walls’.
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Beyond The Walls
Beyond The Walls is about my family’s connection to County Derry. My family has been based in Derry and Northern Ireland for many generations, but this project is an attempt to honour that complicated family history, which is undeniably controversial, as well as depicting what Derry is like now. It primarily features my grandmother and Great Aunt and focuses on their experiences of growing up in Northern Ireland, and what it was like for them to be forced to leave. This project gave me the opportunity to rediscover my family’s history in parallel with the history of Derry itself, and to pay tribute to my grandmother and her sister who once lived there. It has reconnected me with my heritage and allowed me to capture the unseen or covered-up side of Derry, both the Derry my family experienced and the Derry that exists today.
Photobook
My book 'Beyond The Walls' is a body of work relating to my major project. It incorporates mixed media, such as my own documentary photography, archival photography, newspaper articles and hand written statements. This book was created to represent the history of my family in Derry and to compare that to the Derry that exists now.