Will you tell my story? Irish Travellers' tales
Photographer Heather Buckley has been documenting the lives of Irish Travellers around Limerick for the past two years, creating beautiful salt prints from some of the images.
Phil CoomesPicture editor The salt prints are on show at the Brighton Photo Fringe alongside large graphic images that are used as tiles on the walls. This is accompanied by audio interviews with the Irish Travellers, allowing the viewer to immerse themselves in the experience. "'Will you tell my story?' they say to me, and I've tried in my own way," says Buckley. Buckley says the Irish Travellers are isolated from society, both physically and culturally, and have in them a feeling of being forgotten. "The elders remember freedom as children of travelling workers," she writes. "Their grandchildren live behind tall concrete walls, screened from the world, on ill designed sites." Buckley's aim is to challenge pre-conceived ideas of the Irish Travellers and to give them a voice through her work. Buckley's move to using traditional wet processes stems from a desire to rediscover the tactile joys of photography, something many will not have experienced. "I, like everyone else who remembers the days when nothing was virtual, crave to work with my hands not my keyboard and mouse," she says. Each salt print is one of a kind, and they were made by printers Paul Daskarolis and Stuart Kuhn. In contrast, Buckley has tiled part of the exhibition with square colour images, a selection of which appears below. The work is on show at Made Brighton, part of the Brighton Photo Fringe, until 4 November. All photographs by Heather Buckley. Join the conversation - find us on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter.