My ongoing series, Active Forgetting, highlights Irish institutional abuse in Mother and Baby Homes/ Magdalene Laundries, 1922 to 1998. An exploration of insidious trauma both from a personal and political viewpoint. Active Forgetting examines the power of trauma, which is intergenerationally transferred. It is ongoing and haunts the children of survivors.
My eldest brother Joe was born in Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, Tuam. This was, and still is, kept secret in my family. For the last two years I have been working on Active Forgetting, in relation to this recent discovery and for my MA in ARC at IADT. As the descendent of a survivor of Bon Secours I feel I have a unique perspective which is both a privilege and a burden. I’ve researched the genre of works made about this subject in Ireland but for me trauma does not readily conform to the logic of representation.
