'Landings'

‘Landings’ (2001 – 2006)A body of work consisting of three short films: Letter Home, DV, 7’54”, Rencontres Internationales Paris, Madrid and Berlin 2006/07; Flowers, DV, 3’54”, Rencontres Internationales Paris, Madrid and Berlin 2006/07; Christy, DV, 3’10”, Rencontres Internationales Paris, Madrid and Berlin 2006/07. The listed films were screened with the support of the Arts Council of Ireland. They have been screened at conference presentations by Jonathan Cummins such as 'Artsbridge America 2005', University of California, San Diego, 2005; 'Culture and the Unconscious 2: Psychoanalysts, Artists and Academics in Dialogue', University of East London & Tavistock Clinic, London, 2004; Teachers’ Academy, European League of the Institute of the Arts, Academy for Music and Dance Rotterdam and the Willem do Kooning Academy, 2005, Rotterdam; 11th European Prison Education Association Conference (EPEA) 2007; and the art event ‘I Confess That I Was There’, 2006, Interface/University of Ulster, Belfast. 'Landings' is a set of video-documents resulting from a participatory and educational practice based with prisoners in a high-security prison facility in the Republic of Ireland. The work serves as an archive and testimony to the shifts in identity and memory which inmates undergo. The research methodology is rooted in an ethical, educational, participatory and relation-based process, which has developed through six years direct experience researching in a contested prison environment. The methodology was outlined at the 11th EPEA Conference in June 2007 as a potential model for arts professionals and researchers working with lens-based media in ‘total-institution’ environments.The research aims to question existing knowledge across several disciplines and to develop:• a body of knowledge regarding the relationship between inmate and prison institution, which may be of interest to related disciplines, prison regimes and public; ‘documentary’ film process, which facilitates more insightful research than, for example, observational film techniques; and a critical and ethical process, which facilitates the creation, negotiation and dissemination of sensitive video documents, which is respectful of participants.The research was offered funding through the AHRC Research Leave Scheme. It received approval from the Irish Prison Service Research Ethics Committee. However, due to security related delays, the research grant was ultimately withdrawn as the project’s new timeline extended the research outside the original terms of reference.