Enda Bowe
At Mirrored River
At Mirrored River was inspired by the Gaelic word Teannalach (pron. “chann-ah-lack”) which means ‘awareness’. In particular, it is awareness of that which is intangible and hushed; of being aware of the quietness and presence of people, places and nature. With this in mind, Bowe sought to capture the teannalach of stories and dreams within a singular town.
The project is entirely made in an ordinary post-industrial town. For me, my personal challenge was to find the light and the beauty in the ordinary, the hope and the optimism.
As the project unfolded, it became less about the location of the project and more about mapping the feelings contained within the town. It is about the awareness of who we are, the questions we ask and the dreams we project.
Although the project is set in one town, it is not a literal documentation about the town. Bowe wishes the work to be seen as a universal collective palette of feelings and emotions, a European collection of contemporary photography for all nationalities to empathise with.
My intention was to make an unrecognisable geographical picture of a town which didn’t have monumental recognisable iconic images, or if they were there, to avoid the obvious. I wanted to look at the ordinary every day places we inhabit and our ordinary daily lives because for me, the ordinary is where all the of the universal beauty, magic and possibilities lye. As the late influential writer John McGahern said, “the ordinary is the most precious thing in life”