“As a photographer and interdisciplinary artist, I follow investigative lines of enquiry to gain insight into a subject. Projects vary from long-term landscape studies to short-term investigations of marginalised environments that require negotiated access and mediation. Although my chosen methodologies are influenced by a former career as an archaeologist I am no longer bound by the conventions of that discipline. Currently I shoot almost exclusively on film, in both 35mm and 120 roll film formats, and supplement this were appropriate with field recordings (sound). Earlier and ongoing projects have included digital photography and video, as well as archival outputs. Much of my work is informed by an expanded enquiry into the interrelationship between anteriority (what has gone before in time), absence and affect, specifically its influence on me but also human behaviour in general. This has led to engagement with a variety of domestic and industrial spaces, as well as facilities associated with death and the body and sites of historical significance and commemoration. The aesthetic and means of display for each project serve to create a unique record whilst also provoking engagement with an open and incomplete archive or catalogue of sites. In contrast to documentary narrative, I am interested in how one’s experience of a place and its representation can be re-imagined within the context of the contemporary museum or gallery, or in an alternative site of engagement.”

Brian Mac Domhnaill (b. 1975) is a photographer, interdisciplinary artist, arts professional and former archaeologist based in County Cork, Ireland. He holds a first class honours MA in Art & Process from CIT Crawford College of Art & Design (2014), an MSc in Palaeoecology from Queens University Belfast (2001) and a BA in Archaeology and Celtic Civilisation from University College Cork (1997). Awards include an Individual Artist Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland (2021), an Artist Commission for the Archives of Us: Cork 1918-1922 project awarded by Cork City Council Arts Office as part of the Creative Ireland Programme (2019) and the Cork City Council Individual Artists Bursary (2017). Group exhibitions include ‘This Rural’, Lismore Castle Arts (2023), ‘Citizen Nowhere | Citizen Somewhere: The Imagined Nation’, Crawford Art Gallery (2020), Cork Photo Festival with John Sunderland at Cork Public Museum (2015) and ‘The Land of Zero’ exhibition and project curated by Maud Cotter and Pluck Projects at Crawford Art Gallery (2014). Recent exhibitions in the role of curator include ‘Coalescence’, Lavit Gallery (2024), ‘Taking Form: Students of the Year 1973-77 | Maud Cotter, Eilis O’Connell, Vivienne Roche’, co-curated with Sarah Kelleher & ‘Into the weave‘, Lavit Gallery (2023). He was a studio member of the Cork Artists Collective (2016-2019) and now works from his home studio in ‘Middle Cork’. Brian is Director of Lavit Gallery, Cork (2022-) and previously filled the professional roles of Programme & Operations Manager at Sirius Arts Centre (2015-2022) and Studio Coordinator at Backwater Artists Group (2016-2021).