
Film: Architect Part 1
Architect Part 1
A film by artist Laura Gannon and architect Jessica Reynolds
with sound by Susan Stenger
‘Architect Part 1’ is a new short film directed by artist Laura Gannon, featuring architect Jessica Reynolds and with sound composition by Susan Stenger. Set in rural County Mayo, the film reveals the interior and exterior of a house standing alone on the side of a mountain called Devils mother. Abandoned to the elements of time and nature, newer houses were built along the road while this house has stood empty for over forty years.
A family history is subtly revealed as the film layers architecture in a rural environment with the movement of people and the passing of time. The house is surrounded by fields of sheep, the main agriculture in this region on the border of Mayo and Connemara. Jessica’s grandmother was one of thousands who emigrated to England in the 1950s, as Ireland’s population declined. The house remains empty, a monument to this mass emigration and the emptying out of people from the landscape.
Revisiting her family’s former home, Jessica appears at punctuated moments, amplified by beats and drone sounds. A figure in the landscape, she reintroduces herself back into her family history having last visited at the age of nine.