Exhibition | Lane Shipsey: Homing

Does the word HOMING (a) mean to make a home (verb) or (b) describe a missile locked on to a target (adj.) — in which case it could be a way to destroy or unmake a home? The photographs in Lane Shipsey’s first solo show HOMING seek answers to these questions, taking an idiosyncratic, personal, and occasionally humorous look at home, homing and ways we think about home. These photographs, made on a journey, offer the viewer a journey. Along the way, more questions... What do we mean when we say we feel at home? And what do we feel when the place we live in could easily be someplace else? Is the answer all in the eye of the beholder? Come see the show, and write a line in the HOMING notebook with your answers.

In Abhaile | Homing sometimes the overall effect of the images is funny, other times it could be serious. Did you want for them to be funny or serious?

Lane Shipsey: “I didn’t have a plan. A lot of the images are personal. I had to move house a few times, and was trying to find somewhere to live — a situation lots of people go through. Later on restrictions affected the work: first Covid, then illness. All of that kind of fed into making the show.”

’Where are the images in Abhaile | Homing’ from?

LS: Places I lived in or was staying for a while. Waterford, Cork, Kerry. And Antrim. I stayed there a while, I loved it, loved the mountains, and the way you could see Scotland across the water. I expect people from Belfast will spot the Antrim pictures a mile off, maybe even put names on the mountains. I hope to go back and do more work in Antrim.

Bio: Photographs were made in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain. Lane also writes non-fiction and short stories