Monoprints  by Nora Byrne

Location: Ioakimion Girls High School

15.11.2024 – 30.11.2024

Il-ħadid is a series of monoprints collected from small man-made pools near St. Elmo’s bridge in Valletta. It materializes wartime residuals and illustrates their continued presence in both natural and cultural environments.

The original St. Elmo’s Bridge fell during combat between colonial English forces and the Italian navy during the second World War. Today, the wartime history of the bridge is not immediately apparent; a new memorial structure has been built, but is unused.

However, near the bridge, one can find iron-lined holes from the former structure where aging metals bleed into naturally collecting pools of seawater. I found these holes in 2023 and began collecting the floating pieces of iron on a sheet of paper, using the same technique as ebru, or marbling.

I pulled four series of prints over two months, each print an imprint of the moment in which it was made – the saturation and patterns of the iron a record of rainfall, sunshine, wind, and other environmental factors.

Capturing the process of iron dissipating into seawater, collected in a forgotten remnant of wartime, tracks the passage of time, evidence of the effects of forgotten infrastructure.

Nora Byrne is an international artist and educator based in Istanbul and rural New England. After undergraduate studies in Art History, Education and English she moved via Doha, Qatar to Istanbul in 2017. Her interest in cities and place as objects for inquiry arose during an MA in Museum & Gallery Practice from University College London and developed during an MA in Visual Art at Sabancı University.

She now acts as the design head at Nadas Istanbul and is a member of and regular contributor to Diyalog Derneği, organizer of the annual Mahalla Festival. Her urban collage and design work has been displayed in the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Istanbul and Spazju Kreattiv in Malta. New work focused on self-defense and immigration narratives was exhibited in Munich’s Lothringer 13 Halle in September 2024.