Remnant investigates the interconnectedness of place, time, and memory.

In this new exhibition by Willie Doherty, starkly atmospheric images of elemental landscapes formed by the long slow processes of geological time exist alongside disregarded urban spaces shaped by the consequences of human intervention, conflict, and neglect. Through the space of time, the histories of these places transform, becoming the fictions of memory.

Remnant explores how landscape acts as a repository of memory, as a site to construct and sustain images and myths of national identity, of self and of others. The camera examines the landscape as a site of political and ideological intervention, a place shaped by time, and natural processes of decay and renewal. The work articulates new perspectives on transgenerational trauma and our apprehension and uncertainty about the future.

Fusing voice and soundscapes with autonomous yet interconnected photographic and video imagery, the work is structured as dynamic interplay, expanding the narrative, spatial, and atmospheric connections between still and moving images. The work investigates dualities of movement and inertia, abandonment and resilience, presence and absence, permanence and impermanence, the familiar and the unknown.

The fragmentary narrative strands of the work generate temporal and spatial ruptures, animating the experience of the gallery space through the shifting dynamic perceptions of the viewer. Memory becomes a measure of time and space, of dislocation and connection, of what is real and what is imagined.

This exhibition made possible by the support of the Kerlin Gallery.