A residency in the University of Galway’s Gaoth Dobhair Centre in 2022–23 allowed Glasgow visual artist Christina McBride to explore the natural and built environment of her mother’s homeplace in nearby Bun an Inbhir in a series of analogue photographs developed using local fauna and peatland materials.
McBride’s residency in Donegal and the resulting exhibition, Críocha an Chroí / Heartland—was made possible by a partnership involving the University, Údarás na Gaeltachta, Ealaín na Gaeltachta and the Regional Cultural Centre in Letterkenny. In autumn 2023, a second exhibition, Thall Udaí / Over By, focusing on the people of the place, was mounted in Sean-Scoil Bhun an Inbhir and a third is planned for Glasgow in 2024.
A daughter of immigrants, Christina McBride was reared in the Gorbals and Toryglen in Scotland. In the 1950s, her mother, Neilí an Dálaigh, of Bun an Inbhir, Gaoth Dobhair, had emigrated from Donegal to Glasgow, where she met and married Barney McBride, a native of Dunfanaghy.
“My interest in the natural landscape can be traced back to my early formative years, moving between the tenements of the densely packed Gorbals in Glasgow, to the open expanse of the wild and windblown Atlantic coastline at my grandparents’ home at Bun an Inbhir, Gaoth Dobhair, Co. Donegal,” says Christina.
“My practice is embedded in the medium and processes of analogue film—its responsiveness to light and time. In recent years, I have worked with alternative printing processes, expanding the use and understanding of more environmentally conscious materials. Like my mother’s family, I use and carry something of my past. Produce from both land and sea has been essential to the survival of the Donegal community, so I knew I wanted to use these materials to create works that acknowledge that resilience.”
“During my residency, I explored the plants and fauna which survive in peatland conditions to create natural and sustainable photographic developers, including some of the native and invasive species. I also tested the properties of the seaweeds such as sloak, dulse and carrageen moss. Larger images were printed onto re-cycled paper which, over time, will simply return to the land.”
Christina’s residency had two independent yet connected areas of focus—firstly, a new body of lens-based works responding to the specific landscape of Gaoth Dobhair, and secondly, a photographic archive focusing on issues of migration, particularly in the Glasgow/Donegal diaspora. This work culminated firstly in a solo exhibition in An Gailearaí, Gaoth Dobhair in July 2023, followed by an exhibition of works selected from the archive at the old Bun an Inbhir national school. Christina plans to continue her work in Glasgow with more exhibitions to follow.
“I am part of a generation of Irish immigrant families who have spent a lifetime oscillating between a home in Glasgow and a home in Donegal. It was our generation who would arrive with instamatic cameras, photographing a landscape and way of life which contrasted starkly with dark tenement life in the city. The photographs in Críocha an Chroí / Heartland visualise and validate an important narrative, but they exist in a very dispersed and undocumented form in homes across Glasgow and Donegal. The purpose of the archive is to collate and digitise these images and to make them available for current and future generations.”
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Christina McBride lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. After completing a degree in Fine Art Photography at the Glasgow School of Art, McBride undertook a Masters at the Slade School of Art, London. Her practice has included outdoor public art works, installations and is now rooted in lens-based enquiry through photography and film. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally and undertaken residencies in Japan, Canada and the USA. She has had solo exhibitions in New York and Mexico City. McBride also teaches part-time on the Master of Fine Art and Fine Art Photography programmes at the Glasgow School of Art.
