Curios About: Bray Beach Toytown by Aoife Hester

Bray Beach Toytown
By Aoife Hester
Photography, time-lapse video

You can view the video via this link.

1. This work is about . . . “Bray Beach Toytown” invites the audience to view the popular, busy seaside town of Bray from a completely different perspective. The scenes were captured during the busy summer festival period and the angles were all chosen to emulate a model-toy-town-like perspective. Time-lapse photography is most effective when there is lots of movement in the scene. Lots of people and vehicles moving around almost seem like busy ants and the bright colours help to give the scenes a toy/model-like feel.

2. I made this work because . . . I am interested in both time-lapse (video created from a series of photos taken over a set period) and tilt-shift (miniature/model) photography. Having explored both styles, I decided to combine the two. I chose Bray Beach as my subject matter as I grew up with this location and it has some great visual features (bandstand, striped huts, carnival, harbour). I knew that I needed vibrant, busy scenes with lots of people for movement, and the Summer Festival offered just this.

3. I hope when people see this work they will . . . get a sense of nostalgia. Bray Beach has been a popular seaside town and holiday destination for many years. Many of its Victorian features still remain (promenade, bandstand, buildings), and I’d like to think that the video captures these and almost makes it seem as if it were from another time. I think many people would associate carnivals and summer beach visits with their childhoods, so the the video might take them back.

4. In terms of art history, this work . . . has a surreal element to it. Although it might not be extreme, I feel that the overall mood of the piece is a somewhat vibrant, surreal one. I have always admired Robert Doisneau’s documentations of Paris in the 1930s. Although my piece is in no way similar to Robert’s work, I would like to think that the reactions would be similar in a way. His photos were often humorous and had great narratives, as well as being a visual documentation of a particular era.

5. You can see my work . . . on my website, Facebook page, and on Vimeo.

Curios About is a series featuring works by Dublin artists, curated for us by our friends at the Square in the Circle blog, and hosted there as well as here.

Each artist is asked to submit an image of one work and answer a set of questions about it. We’d love it if you’d submit something you’ve made.