Yvette Monahan: The Time of Dreaming the World Awake | Portfolio
The Time of Dreaming the World Awake is a portrait of a place, a landscape of possibility.
This photographic body of work is based in a small region in Southern France. I was drawn there initially by the story of Bugarach, the ‘magic’ mountain. Bugarach was somehow connected to a Mayan prophecy which indicated that the world as we know it, would end on December 21st, 2012. The prophecy claimed that this date would mark the beginning of a new era for humanity, a new and sublime future. Bugarach was to be the first bastion of this modern Arcadia.
I felt that the landscape around Bugarach had a palpable charge and I was compelled to continuously return to photograph it throughout 2012. This idea of a new ideal destiny was appealing as it offered a sense of possibility. It allowed an allegorical landscape full of portents to exist, one that was beyond the visual reality. In order to access the intangible within the landscape, I engaged my intuition, photographing people and places only when I felt moved to. I used this method of visual enquiry to try and understand the existential nature of this place.
Nothing happened last December, which was to be expected. Despite this, I realised how important it was for me to believe in the possibility of an idyll, even if it only existed in my mind.
