Designed by Scott Burnett, Kevin Horan and Brian Heffernan at Aad
Photography: Jill Quigley
Photography: Alison McDonnell
Photography: Dave Greene
Photography: Linda Brownlee
Photography: Kim Cunningham
Photography: Lorcan Finnegan
Photography: Rich Gilligan
Photography: Robert Ellis
Photography: Mike O'Toole
Photography: Ciarán Óg Arnold
Photography: Gráinne Quinlan
Photography: Steve Ryan
Categories: Printed Publication
Industry: Cultural
Website: whereweare.ie/
Where we are is a social project and series of products. Undertaken as a year long project with the title — A year long look at modern Ireland. The project was in part inspired by the wealth of photography talent we saw using Ireland as a subject, and partly in response to the very narrow view or modern Ireland as seen through the lens of politics and mainstream media.
Each month a project from a different photographer was published as a small book, and online. The projects were curated to show many different viewpoints, perspectives, people and places as well as styles and approaches of the photographers, building over time to present a wider story.
The books were designed to prioritise the visual elements. A lot has been said, reported and written about Ireland in the last 5 years. Soundbites, headlines, rhetoric. A single phrase sums it up — ‘We are where we are’. A political phrase that starts where it ends, making it the perfect metaphor for talking in circles. Our hope being that by looking, not talking, we might get a better sense of where we are.
Full sets of the books are now housed in both the Irish and British national libraries as well as individual books being sold online and in small independent bookshops across europe.