A Shut and Open Case: Photographic Imaginings Beyond the Borders of Orange Halls

Orange Halls are traditional meeting places for the Orange Order, a religious fraternal organization active in Ireland since 1795. They are ubiquitous on the island of Ireland, where the preoccupation with and importance of boundaries is endemic. This visual paper focuses on my photographic research of these outward-facing architectural markers of Protestant cultural identity. Through a selection of eight images, I demonstrate how I am creating both a photographic archive of this Protestant architecture and a more subjective body of images, the latter achieved by digitally manipulating photographs to imagine alternatives beyond the borders of their (b)locked windows and doors. Drawing inspiration from the work of artists such as Victor Sloan and Seán Hillen, I digitally manipulate my images of Orange Halls to generate a transparency, albeit imaginary, and thus assert control over their physical and ideological borders.