Martin Cregg Photography

Thirdspace (2004 - 2006)

The body of work is entitled ‘Thirdspace’. The title alludes to the work of cultural and social theorists Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja - both of whom develop ideas about the production of space in the (post-)modern city. The project investigates the construction of transient spaces, and responds to a certain utopian trope in the modernization project around Dublins Docklands in the early 21st century.

The actual building is talking place behind large murals containing a plethora of images - representations of what the future space will look like: large strips of 'water', images of a proposed cosmopolitan future and hoardings with rhetoric such as 'Step into the Future' and 'Freedom by the water'.

What is envisaged is the future-life of the city. What I am interested in is the construction of this imagined place. Some of these projected futuristic spaces respond to the ephemeral constructed space ‘between’ the representation of the envisaged futuristic city utopia and the 'greyness' of the actual city - the thirdspace - the real vs the imagined, the past vs the Future.