M I D L A N D S  (2004 - 2014)

"Poignant images from a region apart."
                                  - Aiden Dunne, Irish Times

"Cregg has provided a superb visual testimonial to the 'wilderness' of suburbia."
                                  - Eamonn Slater, NUIM

Midlands charts the construction of the Irish midlands region from the height of the Irish economic boom in the early part of the decade, to the economic insecurities and uncertainties of recession times. The work focuses on the concept of what the concept of ‘The Midlands’ is in its essence - non-defined, non-geographic, non-place. It charts the confident thrust of building activity which was undertaken in the region after the implementation of The National Spatial Strategy (2002 - 2020) which, it was anticipated, would lead to a dynamic transformation in the region itself, generating business and providing homes which would lay claim to community. This dream however has not materialised. In the rural mid-land areas, the factories which promised to hum with productivity now lay dormant, the houses which promised security lay helplessly unoccupied. In the context of recession, these structures are stripped of the aura of hope they once had - laying bare a certain reality of the unstable nature of the country’s current economic situation.











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