Work in progress by Dr Michael McLoughlin

June 2026

The three moving image works, I have included in the EUROBORDERWALKS exhibition in Lodz in June 2026, are examples of the process I use to make sense of the experience of fieldwork and initial analysis through making. They are experiments with materials and processes the emerged from conversations and collaborations during fieldwork on the ROI/NI border. The approaches by all the artists in the Euroborderwalks team to each of the three border sites are unique and brings their own reflexive understanding of how to navigate the specificity of each site through the artwork they make. My work is guided by the interactions with people I have met through the last two years of the Euroborderwalks project, and their sharing of how to navigate and interpret the borderlands.

The workshops to date have a huge influence on the approaches to the artwork I’m beginning to make and collaboration for me is a very important part of the process. For example, in the case of These ones, its development started as part of art-based workshops in collaboration with IgnYte Youth Project in Derry/Londonderry. This work is based on an recorded discussion and taste test of Tayto crisps, a potato chip produced in the two countries by different companies, but with the same name.

The other two works Crossing and Over both look at the network of road ways crossing from the EU to the UK on the island of Ireland and subtle physical border infrastructure (road signs, change in surface, tarmac, lines and Km vs Mi, etc). I was stopped taking a photograph on one border crossing in the spring 2026. These artworks grew from this encounter and retracing steps via Google Maps, but also from a conversation in Clones about ‘hearing the border’ through changing road surface.

1. These ones – single channel video - 6min loop – 2026, in collaboration with IgnYte Youth Project, Derry/Londonderry.

2. Crossing Over – single channel video – 0.56 seconds loop – 2026