High Shelves, Long Counters

Story of Demand

Winifred McNulty, Heike Thiele

The photographs in the exhibition feature old or abandoned shops and factories in the northwest of Ireland. Photographer Heike Thiele and author Winifred McNulty documented these places in the form of interviews and long-exposure photographs between 2008 and 2012. Most of the shops have since vanished.
Austerely composed and often symmetrical, these analogue photographic colour images paint a picture of society in authentic spaces of a former era. Sometimes one can spot a glimpse of the owners in their sparsely furnished stores. The project pays tribute to the collective memory of a large section of society in times of irreversible changes in values and a corresponding depopulation of the countryside. The photographs mirror a perception of time in rural areas of Europe: 28 photographs revive the imaginary Ireland as can be found in myriad literary works. The large colour prints depict a bygone aesthetic in its modest structure.