'No Longer a Visitor' exhibition opens

"Though the subjects are the people of the Camphill Bridge Community, who have their own struggles, they represent in this exhibition the struggles that we all have, with ourselves."



Amit Sha'al is the main photographer in an extraordinary exhibition which has just opened in the old White Horse Inn lounge and will run for a week. But two other shutterbugs are equally important in this 'No Longer a Visitor' chronicle of life at The Bridge Community, Kevin Prendergast (pictured below on right with Amit) and Mische Fekete.



Between them they have achieved something more than a chronicle, more than a simple photo essay. In what could yet become a permanent gallery for Kilcullen, there is for the next two weeks a display that literally shimmers with energy, endeavour, fortitude, fun, and which gives us not just an insight into the lives of those wonderful residents and co-workers at The Bridge, but also reflects into the souls of those of us who see it.



For those of us who lived here before Camphill arrived, The Bridge Community has become an integral part of the town we have grown up in. For more recent incomers, it has rapidly been seen as yet another part of the very colourful palette of Kilcullen life which they are fortunate to have inherited with their arrival.

For Amit it was a place he wanted to come to when he finished his studies in photography in his native Tel Aviv, Israel. He came not to photograph, but to work as a volunteer. But soon he was taking pictures that maybe he didn't expect to see on public exhibition. He stayed about a year and a half.

"Nine months after I left, I decided to have an exhibition. I came back for a few days and took some more pictures. Back home I began going through the photographs with the help of an editor. Our final selection became the exhibition."

While in Kilcullen, Amit was also taken with the emerging photographic skills of Bridge Community resident Kevin Prendergast, who had been given a digital camera on his 30th birthday. Kevin took to the craft like the proverbial duck to the stuff you sink or swim in, and when Amit's exhibition was opened, he was out in Tel Aviv too as a special guest.

There are no titles to the works on display in Kilcullen. None are needed. Each picture from each of the photographers tells its own story without need of any words.

There are faces which are familiar to some, unknown to others. It doesn't matter. In the faces are the reflections of the humanity which makes all of us function in whatever way we do, and however we can.

Martin Grace, from the Bridge Community Parents Council, officially opened the exhibition on Sunday evening, and was also responsible for the fact that it could be brought to Ireland.

He said he was 'gobsmacked' by the display, which he described as being both artistic and a true reflection of life in The Bridge Community.

"If the photographs had come from somebody 'outside', we might have regarded them as a bit rough, maybe even sensational," he said. "But the fact that they come from Amit, who lived and worked here, and only introduced the photography very very gradually, I think makes them fantastic, and a lovely reflection of his time here."

He quoted Amit's wish that he was shining a light on those 'sidelined from mainstream society'.

Chris Hart of The Bridge Community noted that in the 15 years since the operation had begun, different people had taken photographs from time to time, but no systematic record of life in the community had been created.



"We certainly never put photographs on a wall as an exhibition and invited people to come and look," he said. "And that can be very difficult when the photographs are of quite an intimate nature. In the Community, before the exhibition, we had certain worries about it, whether it would really reflect life here or be something alien. But I can only say now, in my own experience, this is a wonderful exhibition."

Amit, thanking all those who had made the exhibition possible, especially those he had photographed, recounted a story from when he had returned to Israel and got a job on a weekly newspaper.

"I was sent to photograph a new playground for children with special needs, and I did so with a charming, really sweet five-year-old girl in the facility. She was wonderful, but she had elephantisias. I gave the photographs to the newspaper, and a couple of days later when I saw the pictures they had simply cut the girl out of them. I was offended for the girl, and I told them that if they couldn't find a place for her in the paper, they couldn't find a place for her in society.

"So this exhibition is for me something like a cry for aid. It is not just for people with special needs, it is for all people."

The exhibition was organised by Kevin O'Kelly.

Brian Byrne.