Martina Mullaney

Martina Mullaney is an Irish photographer, born in 1972, currently living and working in London, UK. She is very well known for her project 'Turn In', for which she photographed lots of beds in hostels and night shelters. Another well known project is 'Dinner for One', which features many dining tables and other areas set up with a single plate of food.

For her 'Turn In' project, Mullaney visited many different hostels and night shelters, bringing across the the loneliness and isolation of the people using those beds. These are actually themes that show in a lot of Mullaney's work. The prints are beautiful, large-scale and full of colour. It is only after viewing them for a while that the sense of loneliness and sadness kicks in.

The 'Dinner for One' project is very similar and actually accompanies the 'Turn In' project. Again, the loneliness and melancholy are there. Mullaney wanted to show the decline of the ritual of the evening meal and the increase of people eating alone.

Again, as with so many of these interior photographers, I am surprised about my feelings of her work. The empty beds, the lonely plates on tables, they shouldn't interest me. I would've never looked at photographs like these in the manner I do now. In the past, I would've thought they were boring. Now, I find them fascinating. They're really simple photographs, but what they're trying to bring across is quite a strong message.



Image Sources:
http://www.source.ie/artists/artistsM/artmulmar.html
http://www.yossimilo.com/artists/mart_mull/