CONFINEMENT, a short 30 minute film moving through time and through place, journeys across Grangegorman and the surrounding inner city of Dublin, from Georgian times, right up to today, where the site is being re-born as new urban quarter.
Artist Trish McAdam uses charcoal drawings, live action, photography and motion graphics, combined with the imagined narration of artist Tony Rudenko (voiced by actor Aiden Gillen) to take us on the journey from past to present.
Speaking about her latest project, which has been funded by the Grangegorman Public Art Programme ‘…the lives we live’ and Dublin City Council, McAdam said that the idea emerged from a line her eye traced on a map from Henrietta Street to Grangegorman. She explained “I had lived in number 5 Henrietta Street from 1977 to 1986 on and off and had never noticed my proximity, as the crow flies, to the infamous Grangegorman asylum, which, in my living memory, was used as a common, social control, threat.
McAdam reflects, ““One of the most powerful experience I have had making this film was creating the charcoal drawings from photographs, over a century old, of patients from the Grangegorman Asylum, which I was kindly given permission to use by the HSE and National archive to use, only with a guarantee of the anonymity of the individuals, The emotions on these faces is where the most intense power lies for the audiences who have watched the film so far. And it is not just that they are thinking of the past. “
Speaking on behalf of the Grangegorman Public Art Working Group about Confinement, Chair Ciaran Benson said, “Trish McAdam has woven a personal story of an old friend, centred on his distinctive basement home in the centre of Dublin, with a centuries-long history that touched thousands of unfortunate citizens. With this resonant and moving work of art, she unfolds a skillfully re-imagined map of this past for the present rebirth of this long-neglected Dublin City quarter.”
Confinement is being shown publicly as part of the Virgin Media Dublin International Film Festival, with two screenings taking place in the Lighthouse Cinema, Smithfield. The dates for these screenings are Friday 22nd February at 6.30pm and Friday 1st March at 11am. The film is being shown as part of Dublin On Screen which celebrates the work and storytelling of three very unique, community based projects. For full booking details go to www.diff.ie
