Oatfield - Temperance

Author:

Abigail O'Brien

Description:

"The remarkable series of photographs that Abigail O'Brien produced at the Oatfield Sweet Factory at Letterkenny in County Donegal can be read on many levels. The most prosaic interpretation would focus on the documentary nature of these works, which record the equipment and materials and processes involved in the making of traditional candies, but which also introduce us to the men and women who perform the necessary alchemy of sweet making. Mixing and kneading and pouring and extruding and pressing and tempering and slicing and wrapping, flow together into a sort of candy-choreography. Even outsiders can perceive the concentration, but also the rhythmic sureness and ease with which individual gestures are carried out. What transpires here is a kind of laying on of hands, and the workers, like the dwarfs in the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, have an air of witchcraft about them. But we do not just see employees going about the practiced routines of work. We see them in repose as well - as in 'Breaktime' or in 'Time Out', which conveys a sense of fundamental separation and weariness that seem to place the viewer in the role of voyeur. The men and women depicted here might be actors glimpsed backstage after a performance, their masks dropped." (extract from essay by Dr. David Galloway)

Writers: Dr David Galloway, John M. Cunningham, Michael McLoone, Clr. Brendan Byrne and Fred Barry

Editor/Co-ordinator: John M. Cunningham

Co-ordinator: Declan Sheehan

Publisher: Donegal County Council and The Regional Cultural Centre

ISBN: 978-0-9553301-6-2

Funder/Commissioner: Donegal County Council and The Regional Cultural Centre

Available from: Regional Cultural Centre, Port Road, Letterkenny, County Donegal Tel: 353 74 91 29186, Email: rcc@donegalcoco.ie

Price: €35