May 30, 2011

Graduate Show...June 3rd @ IADT







Keeping Up Appearances


Fiona Dowling


Keeping Up Appearances visually chronicles the lives of several young women based in the rural midlands. The work seeks to document the ways in which they choose to express themselves, both individually and collectively, whilst living in an increasingly futile economy that specialises in the mass exportation of young adults. In spite of this, an unspoken tenacity remains in their social desires and their personal aspirations. A deep rooted relationship exists with their often banal and temporally fragmented rural existence, contrasting sharply with the exuberant cosmopolitan lifestyles that emanate from popular-culture.

Extracted from a larger on-going series, the images displayed pay tribute to the ways in which these young women ‘colour in’ their lives regardless of prescribed social and cultural limitations. It is a visual homage to their blissful intransigence in the face of economic austerity and cultural isolation; an ode to keeping up appearances.