Prints From a Life: The Michael O'Connor Poster Collection

Softback

29.7 x 42cm

88pp

Digital Print

Edition of 5

The Michael O'Connor Poster Collection is made up of approximately 2800 posters of international derivation, and was donated to Limerick City Gallery of Art in 1989. In the context of the Michael O'Connor Poster Collection, the project looks at how cultural institutions seek to balance the seemingly contradictory tasks of making collections readily available to the public, and effectively preserving them for the future. The project took the form of a thesis contained within a limited edition designed publication visually expanding upon it.

The publication is rare and ephemeral, much like the poster collection. It is perfect-bound and soft-back, with a gallery-white, matte cover. It is therefore easily marked by the reader and the passage of time. In this way it is connotative of the archives that were pored through in researching the project. The book is elegant, flawed and at times somewhat awkward. Through glitches, abstract photography and illustration within a formal framework, it combines classic and irregular design elements. Within the book there are several layers of information, which may be read in different ways. In this manner the dense content of the thesis is interpreted visually, and rendered accessible.

The project culminated in a curated exhibition at Limerick City Gallery of Art, which ran from January - March 2015. It was the largest exhibition of the Michael O'Connor Poster Collection to date.