Survey

Following Maedhbh McMahon's reply (see post below) I decided to create a survey based on the Magdalene Laundries to see other people's opinions on this diverse subject that is often spoken about in whispers and seen as a "taboo". I got 15 response from this online survey which I was happy with.

One of the questions in which I got the best responses from was the question -

After much effort and many published accounts from victims of the Magdalene Laundries, the Irish Government introduced a "Compensation Scheme". However, none of the women have yet received any money and three of these elderly women have passed away since then, receiving nothing. Do you think that this is fair? Can you think of another way that the government could help these survivors?

Some responses were:

- No Its not Fair. Government should compensate them and provide them a Basic needs.

- i don't think this is fair. The women should have gotten money way before now. The government could help by giving money to the families of the victims.

- Very unfair...these women should be compensated immediately. The government should look after their day to day needs and provide them with proper home care/nursing home care if needed and try to make amends for what the religious order did to these young women in the past.

- The Magdalene organisation and it's holdings should be dissolved and the assets split between the surviving women, this on top of compensation and back pay in line with the rate of inflation.

- No, it's not fair. If they were to receive compensation, they should have received it. This typical Irish delay tactics is just crazy. The poor ladies that have passed away. I'm not quite sure how it could be sped up though. Government policy should be in place regarding this to just look after the ladies.

- Absloutely unfair. Name the art college after one of them?

- NO that is very unfair, the women should be given financial compensation AND a public acknowledgement from the church and state as well as an apology.

- Monetary benefits will probably never make a drastic difference to most of these women. But it should be given along with apologies from the church of Ireland and government.

Maedhbh McMahon - Research

One artist whom I am extremely inspired by is the Limerick born, London based artist Maedhbh McMahon. McMahon created an installation in 2013 titled "All this in the name of Jesus". This included a large hand stitched ground plan of the good shepherd convent. She also made tiny dolls sized dresses out - each dress represented a different Magdalene Laundry, Institution and baby home.

I made contact with this artist and she was very helpful and inciteful. I decided to try and make contact as she does not invite media or reporters to her exhibition. I wrote to her asking many questions on her concepts and ideas behind her artwork as there is also no artist statements. 

This is her reply :

Hi Elizabeth, 

I will try and answer your questions but am a bit pressed for time right now as we're in the middle of an election.

I don't know if there are any reviews of my work in London, we never invite the media or reviewers as our work (I work with Farcry Productions and Gerard Mannix Flynn) is purely about putting 'taboo' issues out into the public so that the public can digest it and begin to discuss its impact on them.  

I have been researching the Magdalene issue since 2003 when I first visited the Limerick Laundry. Although people think justice has now been done nothing has actually changed since then.  The apology from An Taoiseach was forced, they put Martin Mc Aleese, a devout Catholic in charge of a bogus inquiry (not an independent public inquiry) that was an absolute insult to the women, their children and families. None of the evidence gathered legally and correctly by the Justice for Magdalenes group was included and the findings were of course exactly what we would expect.  Since they announced the 'compensation scheme' (another shameful act by our Government and the Catholic Church) three of the Magdalene women have died - with nothing.  (There are very few who have actually signed up for compensation so you're not even talking about the amount our Government would spend on petrol allowance in a year).  No women have received money yet.  It is as if they are waiting for them all to die off in full knowledge that these women are very elderly and they could have at least have made the last remaining years of their life worthwhile. 

It is not that I am angry with the weakness of our Government.  I am ashamed of them and their treatment of fellow Irish citizens and their contempt for the people who gave them the power to work on our behalf.  If we cannot stand up and admit there were things wrong with what we did, how we acted and how we allowed ourselves condemn and contain women and children on this island in the past then we will learn nothing, but will carry the memories of that wrong with us wherever we go.

I don't want to shock people with my work.  The key is to create safe places where people can come and sit and contemplate what happened.  Hundreds of people came through the doors of our space in London.  Many were children of women who had been locked up in Industrial schools, women who had been in Mother and baby homes, adopted people who had no idea who they were but thought perhaps one of the women on the wall could have been their mother....England is full of families that ran out of here. They found a safe place in England but many have never spoken about why they ran or what they left behind.  I met a lot of children of these people over there who somehow by learning about what happened and how our country was run and contained by State/Church find some kind of explanation as to why their mother may not have been able to hug them or give them the affection they craved.  It gives them answers.  And whether those answers are the correct ones or  not is between them and their mothers.  But it allows people to begin to deal with the hurt.  

I am from Limerick and have been to the Good Shepherd many many times and really don't think an art school of all things should be in there, not with former Magdalene women still on the grounds attached and not when the truth has actually been whitewashed.  Its like housing an art school in Auschwitz. 

If our State and its people had actually begun to deal with this issue perhaps it would be possible to reuse those buildings of containment but as they stand now to walk on those tiles that were scrubbed daily from 5.45am by women on their knees, who had committed no crime I think its wrong. 

For me the Industrial School system, the Magdalene Laundries, the Asylums and Mother and Baby homes were all one system...there is no difference and it was a massive money making industry.  It may take 30 years more for all the facts and truth to come out but it will eventually have to come out and we will as a Nation eventually all have to deal with it.  

Everywhere I go these days I bump into people who have just discovered that they had an Aunt or cousin who was sent into a Laundry system.  There are secrets buried in every family and they are carried in different ways. 

Somehow we have to let them go and speak them.

All the best

Maeve McMahon

Aquatinted Plates

Here are the finished aqua tint flower prints.I bit the plates first in the acid for around 45 minutes at different interval where I blocked out areas with bichum to create tone. I then used different coloured inks and experimented with toprolls.

Scanned Flowers

I then scanned my pressed flowers and uploaded them on photoshop. I am going to make aquatints from these images. To do this I had to then invert the image on photoshop. After printing these out I oiled them and exposed the images on a screen. I then prepared zinc plates for aquatint, and using bitchum, silkscreened the inverted flowers on the plates. I then bit these in the acid at different intervals.

Pressing Flowers

The Magdalene nuns used to keep a small rose garden at the front of the college, from accounts from survivors, many mentioned this garden of flowers and that only the nuns were allowed to near them. I began by letting flowers wilt, and then pressing them to preserve them. I chose many different types of flowers this, including the coronation which is a a symbol for a "tribute to god" so I found this very fitting.

Digtal Media

In these digital prints, I ripped up pages of the bible and glued them onto a sheet of fabriano, I then scanned them into photoshop and edited them. I layered both of them with biblical quotes from the bible referring to "whores" ( many of the women who were admitted into the laundries, were prostitutes or had gotten pregnant outside of marriage ) I then layered the first one with an image of the plaque on the front door which still says "Good Shepherd Convent". I then layered the second one with an image of the empty statue in the front of the garden.

Church Radiator

The church has really old brown radiators. They have been there since when the Laundries still ran. There is something that is quite oppressive about these radiators, the verticals lines of the pipes remind me of a jail cell - further emphasizing that the girls were imprisoned in the institute. I took photographs of this and layered it n the same style that I layered the confessional box.

Bible work

Since I have been looking up biblical terms, I decided that the Bible itself should become a part of my work. I have only started exploring this but I hope to carry it through.  I bought a bible, and have now begun to hollow it out, it has taken me 4 blades already and I am only a quarter of the way through so it wont by completed in time for progress reviews. Once completed I am hoping to fill it with different juxtaposing items, perhaps a bar of soap as the girls used to scrub the dirty laundry by hand using bars of soap.

I also purchased another hard back book. I opened it in the middle and painted it white. I then bought some thorns and glued them on, in the hope they would look like text - biblical text. also referring to the crown of thorns jesus wore on the cross. this is still a work in progress and only my first attempt.

Confessional Box

This is a digital print of the confessional box just inside the college, attached to the church part of the building. One of the nuns "mottos" was 'labour for the salvation of souls'. This labour was a form of penance for their sins. I really liked how this photograph turned out. It is actually 2 photographs layered and edited in photoshop. I think it brings out the dominating, monumental qualities of this Institute. I am going to photograph more confessional boxes around Limerick. I am hoping to gain access to the Franciscan Church in town to take more photographs like these.

No access to the attics :(

Unfortunately, I was no granted access to the college attics. I am very disappointed over this as I know the attics have not changed at all since the time of the Magdalene Laundries. I will stick to the rules though and continue to take photographs on the areas I am allowed to visit. I also decided to photograph the attic windows from the front of the college. I think that these are rather effective and add an eerie, mysterious quality. I am very tempted to try an etching & aquatint of these as I adore the tonal qualities.

The empty statue in the front Garden

In the front garden, set into the wall, there is a statue plint, with a plaque, however the statue is missing. It was taken away since the Laundries closed. I find this piece very interesting and I am hoping to work with it further. The religious element of the statue has been removed, yet the foundations are still intact - quite like the Laundries. The girls who were admitted to the Laundries, never learned anything about religion - they only learned how to scrub laundry.

Photographs from the Inside of the Front door

On the front door there is a small little latch that can open from the inside to reveal a little vent/grill. From the inside you can peek out into the gardens. I imagine that some of the little girls used to look out longingly from the inside, only wishing they could play in the garden instead of working in silence and in misery. I took a number of photographs of this view.

The front door of the Convent

The front door of the Good Shepherd Convent, where the nuns first brought the young girls into the Institute, still stands present at the front of the college today. One thing that I noticed that was present in many of the stories from the survivors, was that the image of the red front door stood out very clearly in their memory.

I decided to silkscreen this image of the oppressive front door in a 3 color silkscreen - using a light yellow for the color of the college walls and a dominating, harsh red for the front door. I then screened the door in a black bitmap on top. This is still a work in progress. I am currently trying to get my hands on a transparent varnish that can be silkscreened with. I want to screen biblical quotes that combine both doors and quotes.

"For a wide door for effective work has opened to me.." 1 Corinthians 16:9

Magdalene Laundries - The Good Shepherd Convent - A New Direction

As part of my self initiated project which focused on modern day slavery, I began looking and exploring the Magdalene laundries. Our college, LSAD was once formally know as the Good Shepherd Convent. Many young girls were admitted into the Laundries with out any choice of their own and forced by the nuns to work long hours cleaning laundry and scrubbing floors as "penance for their sins". They were never paid and never received an education during their stay at the laundries. I feel that this is beginning to really ground my project and I can really connect with this concept of modern day slavery as it happened right here in college and the Laundries was only shut down in the 1990's.

Photography

In these photographs I wrapped wire around my face and photographs them up close. I then edited them and cropped them in photoshop.

Spool of thread woodcut

I made a 6 colour reduction woodcut print of a spool of thread. I wanted the image to be child like to bring forward the concept of child slavery.

After this I began a detailed drawing of a spool of thread

T-shirt

I bought a child's stripey top and in black thread I sewed an image of shackles onto the front. However, I made the shackles look almost like a smiley face so when you first look at it, all you see is a smiley face, and on second glance you realise that they are shackles.

Photocopies

Here I photocopied the photographs with the sewn in lips. I think that this adds a more ghostly/eerie effect and the detail of the thread and needle still remains.

Stitching into photographs

As stitching into paper was something that I began to do from the start, I began to start looking into the idea of stitching into photographs. I wanted to stitch into the images of children's mouths. Unfortunately there are a number of restrictions when it comes to the photography of children for obvious reasons. I decided to find photographs of children's faces, and re-photograph them. I then scanned them in to the computer and cropped them all to the same square size. I first printed them out on glossy paper and stitched into their mouths using coloured thread.

I wanted the images to be unsettling, contrasting against the bright thread. However the glossy paper and the quality of the photographs didn't work and didn't capture the effect I wanted. After talking to my tutor, I rescanned them in and faded the opacity by more than 50%. I also used a nice water colour paper to print them onto. this did give a better effect.

Silkscreen

I decided to create silkscreens using bitmap of the photographs that I took of the toys wrapped in wire. I chose bright pastel colours for the background, to represent youth and innocence. On tope of this I screened the images of the shoe and the doll. I edited them on photoshop before screening them to give them a contrasting/eerie look when put of top of the pastel block colour.

Photography

I wanted to create images that focused on the destruction of children's innocence as a result of slavery. I began to stick with the imagery of toys that I first started looking at while researching the marionette. I began to wrap these toys tightly with wire - a process which I was inspired to start by researching the Irish artist Bill Penney.

More Sketchbook Work - Paisley

I began looking at the paisley print as it originates from India - where a vast majority of sweatshops are present. Child slaves are very popular within the stitching of garments as their hands are very small and can create intricate detail. The paisley print, also has the same shape as a drop - blood drop or a tear drop? Both of these visual images fit well into the unhappiness of stitching such patterns.