Yvette Monahan is a Dublin based Photographer originally from Sligo, in the North-West of Ireland. Yvette holds an MA in Geography from Trinity and an MFA in Photography from the University of Ulster, which she completed in 2013 under Paul Seawright and Donovan Wylie. Yvette was awarded the Portfolio award at PhotoIreland in 2013 for her body of work “The Time of Dreaming the World Awake.” The portfolio award culminated in a solo show at The Copper House Gallery as part of PhotoIreland 2014, which was reviewed in The New York Times, The Independent and numerous photography blogs. This work was also exhibited at the Skibbereen Arts Festival, the Belfast PhotoFesitval, the Backlight PhotoFestival in Finland, Quad Derby in the UK and the Circulations Festival in Paris. Her work is held in the Office of Public Works collection. Today we share Yvette’s much acclaimed series titled The Time of Dreaming the World Awake.
The Time of Dreaming the World Awake
“The Time of Dreaming the World Awake is a portrait of a place, a landscape of possibility.
This photographic body of work is based in a small region in Southern France.
I was drawn there initially by the story of Bugarach, the ‘magic’ mountain. Bugarach was somehow connected to a Mayan prophecy which indicated that the world as we know it, would end on December 21st, 2012. The prophecy claimed that this date would mark the beginning of a new era for humanity, a new and sublime future. Bugarach was to be the first bastion of this modern Arcadia.
I felt that the landscape around Bugarach had a palpable charge and I was compelled to continuously return to photograph it throughout 2012. This idea of a new ideal destiny was appealing as it offered a sense of possibility. It allowed an allegorical landscape full of portents to exist, one that was beyond the visual reality.
In order to access the intangible within the landscape, I engaged my intuition, photographing people and places only when I felt moved to. I used this method of visual enquiry to try and understand the existential nature of this place.
Nothing happened last December, which was to be expected. Despite this, I realised how important it was for me to believe in the possibility of an idyll, even if it only existed in my mind.”
Yvette also self-published The time of dreaming the world awake as a monograph in July 2014. It is currently on sale in bookshops in Tokyo, Cologne, Brussels, Bordeaux, Leeds, and Liverpool. In Dublin, it is available in The Gallery of Photography, The Library Project and IMMA. The book is held in several collections including the Reminders Collection in Japan, The Indie Book Club in the USA, The Photobook Club and The Natural Collection in the UK and the University of Ulster collection. This body of work has been featured in many photography magazines including Hotshoe, Fraction, Darwin, Prism and SPBH.
To view more of Yvette’s work please visit her website.