Island Talk 22
24th June 2026
Talk 1 - Dee Byrne
Dee Byrne is a lens-based artist, who often works with archive material and textile interventions. Byrne’s work is heavily influenced by meditations of material form, object memory and the contemporary resonance of past events. At the heart of Byrne’s practice is an intimate connection with time and material space. She explores themes relating to women's histories, the body, the natural world and spiritual beliefs. Byrne graduated from the BA Photography programme at TU Dublin in 2023, receiving both the PhotoIreland Radar Residency and the Photo Museum Ireland Early Career Artist Award. Her work has been exhibited both in Ireland and abroad, in England, Scotland, Belgium and most recently Columbia.
Dee will present her ongoing project Of Petals, Pearls and Inherited Creatures. This work examines emotional inheritance and female identity through an exploration of familial object histories and the intimate bonds between women in her family.
Through this work, she demonstrates how photography can collapse the passage of time and facilitate a connection with shared memory and belonging. She will reflect on the continuation of the family archive and introduce the concepts of ‘Archival gestures’ and ‘Archival mimicry’. She will also reflect on her deeply personal approach to photography, as she empathises with her own past, honoring her place in a shared history and acknowledging the active nature of inheritance.
Talk 2 - Gavin Leane
Gavin Leane is a Dublin-based visual artist working primarily in photography. His practice explores the complexities of the human condition, often focusing on themes of memory, connection, absence, and the spaces that exist between people. While photography remains at the centre of his work, he frequently expands into installation, sculpture, and other forms to challenge both process and perception. His projects are driven by curiosity, empathy, and a desire to understand how we construct meaning from personal experience.
This ongoing body of work centres on his father and explores the shifting relationship between parent and child as illness, ageing, and time alter familiar roles. Using photography as both a document and a form of communication, the project examines memory, play, intimacy, emotional connection, and emotional distance.
The work moves between observation and collaboration. At times the photographs are playful and absurd, at others they confront vulnerability, uncertainty, and the inevitability of loss. Rather than attempting to create a definitive portrait of his father, the project reflects on how we remember those closest to us, how they remember themselves, how relationships evolve, and how photography itself can become a conduit for love, grief, and understanding.
