Direct Provision Diary

Abstract

I started taking photographs of Direct Provision in 2007 while I was confined - as an asylum seeker - living in The Old Convent Direct Provision Centre in Ballyhaunis. The photographs that I took then, and after I received a permission to stay in Ireland in 2009, are devoid of people. There are no bodies of asylum seekers in Asylum Archive. What you can see are the ghosts, the ephemera, traces, remnants of lives once lived in Direct Provision. If we look at the history of the Irish State and the previous carceral sites, including Magdalene Laundries, Industrial Schools, Mother and Baby Homes and Lunatic Asylums, there is very little visual information. I wanted to document Direct Provision, so we never forget the most appalling and inhumane way we treat asylum seekers who came to Ireland to seek protection.