A Place To Come From

Perhaps seeking to better understand his own feeling of dislocation, Beaven, an immigrant to the USA with British and Irish passports, has been connecting with Irish and Irish Americans living in and around the nearby community of East Durham, NY, often referred to as ‘The Irish Alps’. This is work in progress.

Through the latter half of the twentieth century, until the 1980’s, every summer the area transformed into a vibrant vacation centre for blue collar Irish immigrants based in New York City. Despite a steep decline in Irish vacationers over recent decades, Beaven is finding and photographing an Irish community preserving their own sense of home from home. 

“To know who you are, you have to have a place to come from.” Carson McCullers