Boys eating chips celebrating Eid al-Fitr the end of Ramadan in Damascus.
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AN IMPERFECT NORMALITY

An Imperfect Normality is a retrospective exhibition of pictures by Tommie Lehane of a Syria that was. Like dozens, and more, periods throughout Syria?s long history, this time is now past and consigned to the history books. Currently ravaged by war and chaos, it is hard to imagine a place that, to those who lived within its territory or who crossed its borders, was a relatively normal place to be.

This work seeks to document a normality whilst hinting at its imperfections and considering the effect of war as a method of change.

The Images are from 2005 and 2009 when the photographer visited initially as a tourist and on the second occasion stayed mainly in the house of a friend in a tiny village. He was there for a few weeks for each period of shooting. Al Hamidiyah village

The work is focused around the normality of life in a place where the obvious undercurrents have now resulted in the awful situation that now exists. Lehane had planned to return in 2012 to focus on the «Greeks of Al Hamidiyah», the village where some of these images were taken, but events overtook his plans and through war the Syria he had come to know no longer exists.

Lehane’s practise is primarily centered on the exploration of place. Unusually, he has a dual focus on the Middle East and a small village Castlegregory, in the Dingle Penninsula. Tommie has been widely exhibited in Ireland and Europe and also at the start of 2015 in war torn Aleppo in Syria.

In 2014 Tommie Lehane was the recipient of the Alliance Fran?aise Photography Laureate.

The exhibition runs in the Fire House Gallery Dublin from September 10th to September 25th.