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| Anna Ryan |
Tonight we were happy to attend Anna Ryan's lecture, the first lecture of the Lecture@SAUL series hosted by Peter Carroll and Merit Bucholz.
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| Merit Bucholz |
Anna Ryan, having graduated from UCD in 2000 went on to work with Grafton Architects where she worked on many interesting project including Universita Luigi Bocconi, Millian which formed part of Irelands entry to the Venice Biennale in 2008. Afterwards she went on to complete a PhD in Geography at UCC. Anna is now a full time lecturer here at SAUL
Recently Anna has had the opportunity to edit the work of her PhD into a book which she has titled "Where Land Meets Sea: Coastal Explorations of Landscape, Representation and Spatial Experience", which will be published March 2012. The Book details the phenomenological research of the ever changing edge condition of the Irish coast. In particular the Maharees Peninsula, Kerry and the South Wall, Dublin. Anna's talk tonight dealt in principal with the spatial experience aspects of her book.
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| The captive audience |
As part of her research Anna approached people at her chosen sites and asked them to take photos with a disposable camera. At the Mahrees Peninsula she asked them to photos of places of importance to them and at the South Wall she asked for photos that show the reason they visit. In total she had 62 participants in her research, who took photos over 1-6 weeks. After this Anna engaged in a conversations with the participants about why they chose to take those photos. She also asked some to draw their experience of the sites.
Anna displayed many of these photos and drawings, which painted a vivid picture of people's personal connections with these sites. Anna explained how she felt she allowed the participants to engage more fully and gain a deeper understanding of their spacial experiences of the site, through her research.
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| Peter Carroll |
Anna also quoted many of the participants which allowed us to learn of their personal experiences, ranging from a fisherman who lives on his boat in Kerry to a woman who used her visits to the South Wall to deal with her depression. The talk ended with the conclusion that the participants felt that the physical place had become engrained in their personal sense of self. Anna summarized this as places becoming embedded in us.
In the following Q&A session questions were asked by several students and SAUL staff including Eóran O'Reilly who asked about the social aspects of the research and Peter Carroll who asked about constructed versus found landscape with regard to Anna's choice of site. Anna concluded by saying she believed there are no found landscapes as there is human influence on all landscape.
Next week's Lecture@SAUL lecture will be by Practice Architecture who have made a name for themselves creating architecture from found materials.