Tomorrow is Sunday by Miriam O'Connor

‘Following the death of my brother Jerome, I returned home to be with my mother and sister and to help run the family farm. That was in 2013, and since then, against the backdrop of everyday farming life, photography and my relationship to it has taken many twists and turns. In the beginning, I welcomed it for its ability to help me navigate the chaos of intense grief. Later, I resented it for making light of or romanticising such a tragic period in my life, in our lives. Sometime later, I surmised that if photography was going to make things better, or serve any function at all, then it had better be put to work. 

Changing course, I began to use photography in conjunction with routine farm tasks. I embarked on a series of self-portraits over an entire farming year. I made lists. I wrote stories. I compiled inventories of animals, rocks, water troughs, stakes and gates. I assembled these photographs into small logbooks which acted like micro manuals for survival. I became obsessed with a tree which, over time, became a huge source of comfort, a place that I consistently returned to time and time again when I was trying to find my way.  

Tomorrow is Sunday is the sum of all of these paths. This book represents an attempt to make sense of that time. It is my way of acknowledging the complexities of grief and the magnitude of navigating a way through this life-changing event’ Miriam

Miriam O’Connor is from Cork and was educated at Technological University, Dublin and later completed a Research Masters at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design & Technology, Dublin (2011). Her work has been featured in magazines including; Camera Austria, Source Photographic Review, The New York Times and The Guardian. Recent exhibitions include, newly commissioned work Isla Blue for Active Archive – Slow Institution – The Long Goodbye at Project Arts Centre, Dublin (2019) and works in The Parted Veil at The Lewis Glucksman, Cork (2019). In 2018 she exhibited in Interiors and Other Landscapes, Sternview Gallery, Cork, RHA Annual Open, Dublin and in Encountering The Land at VISUAL, Carlow. In conjunction with Galleri Image, Denmark, she was commissioned to produce new work for FRESH EYES – International Artists Rethink Aarhus, which was exhibited during Aarhus Capital of Culture, 2017. In the same year her work was part of a touring show Post-Picturesque: Photographing Ireland at Rochester Arts Center and the Perlman Teaching Museum, USA.

This project has been supported by Cork County Council (2017), The Arts Council of Ireland (2018), Creative Europe Cooperation Project “A Woman’s Work” (2020) and Gallery of Photography Ireland (2020).