False Start, Limitless Ending - Frank McElhinney

Join Frank McElhinney as he charts the course of the River Forth from source to mouth, exploring literal and metaphorical concepts of flow.

'False Start, Limitless Ending' is a series of kite aerial photographs made from the source stream of the River Forth that feeds Loch Chon all the way out to the sea. It is a meditation on mortality and the cycle of life.

The photographs were originally made in 2014 in response to the theme of FLOW that was proposed that year by the Jill Todd Photography Award, in which the series won first prize.

The wind blown, aerial, perspective of places like Culross, Burnt Island and Fife Ness was intended to reflect in material terms the idea of flow. The inspiration for the work lay in the events of 1314 when a great battle had been fought at Bannockburn and several thousand people had died, many by drowning in the burn and River Forth. Frank had developed a body of work about Bannockburn for his degree show in June 2014. The show was cancelled due to fire. Within a few days of the fire Frank was photographing the waters of the Forth.

In this talk, Frank will cover the series made along the River Forth but will also discuss his process for making work. In particular he will examine the ways in which one project leads to another and themes addressed years earlier tend to flow through the work and resurface.

You will be able to see this collection on exhibition at Made in Stirling, 44 King Street, Stirling from 7th September - 24th September 2021.

All talks will be recorded and will have live captioning. When booking, please advise us of any access requirements.
Frank Mcelhinney is a fine art photographer whose work deals with contemporary issues such as migration, conflict and national identity, usually through the lens of history. He is interested in history as a process and the ways in which history is used as a material. Frank graduated from the Fine Art Photography course at Glasgow School of Art in 2014.