Siún Hanrahan examines David Creedon’s haunting photographs, where abandoned possessions in empty dwellings serve as talismans of remembrance
David Creedon’s ‘Ghosts of the Faithful Departed’ evokes an Ireland that was; times that seem to have been simpler, an era in which families and communities were decimated by emigration and comforted by a pervasive religious faith. The photographs are unstaged — taken in abandoned (predominantly) domestic interiors untouched by the photographer — capturing apparently forgotten traces of lives lived, in spaces that have not yet been reclaimed and renovated. And yet, the documentary impulse that emphasises the ‘taken as found’ dimension to the images is complemented by a strong aesthetic sensibility. The photographs have been made with a clear eye for quite formal, planar compositions and a keen sensitivity to colour and texture
