Pool Party
There is beauty in swimming pools. Their balanced symmetry and uniform colour palette make them pleasing to look at. Pools have served people for hundreds of years. Their presence has been impactful and their intimate setting has given us glimpses of the divides between public and private society throughout history.
Whitewashed
Whitewashed is a publication about the mis-representation of nostalgia in regard to the swimming pool in American history. Throughout history the swimming pool has been viewed as a symbol of the American Dream. However, during the mid 20th century, the United States was segregated and African American people – along with many other things – were not allowed to swim in many municipal pools, if they choose to, they were met with extreme violence. Furthermore racial discrimination was one of the motives behind the nationwide popularisation of the private backyard pool in America – a phenomenon that sky rocketed in popularity when public pools became desegregated.
Whitewashed aims to inform the reader of the history that has not been told. The book is decorated with the familar bright colourful images of pool postcards and photography from the 1960s & 70s , that dissolve when placed in water, while the information regarding the racial tensions surrounding pools is on waterproof paper. The idea behind this is that the reader would place the book in water and the book would rid itself of the fake front and leave you with just the unbiased facts.
Like the Confines of a Sonnet
While the private pool is viewed as a romanticised luxury, the public pool is a quietly humble entity. Why is the addition of other people change our perception of a place? I wanted to capture the public pool’s natural beauty that is often unacknowledged. Like the Confines of a Sonnet is a newsprint publication consisting of photographs that I took of 8 different public pools around Dublin. Poet Jean Strickland said of the swimming pool ‘The confines of the pool are like the confines of a sonnet, its what you achieve within it.’ Inspired by this statement, the publication is divided into fourteen spreads to replicate the form of a Sonnet, with each spread containing a line of the sonnet Swimming Sonnet by Sharon Brogan.
Laps
Laps is a frame by frame animation connected to the personal and meditive nature of being alone with your thoughts while swimming.In my personal experience, being in water was some of the only time a day where I was not using some form of technology, which in turn meant that I was entirely alone undistracted. Each of the icons in the animation begin as circles to imitate the circular movements on the pools surface, with each becoming an abstract icon, representing different pool elements such as, the shapes on a sign or the bunting above the pool. The animation was hand-drawn frame by frame, to replicate the focus on the process and is looped to imitate the repetitive nature of swimming laps.
