Layover, The Collision Project, STARLING, 31 Nicholas Street, Limerick

19 Jul - 26 Feb 2025

Layover is a collaborative drawing project by Lauren Conway and Barry Gibbons which explores how prescribed photographic histories of Ireland can be presented to form an accepted narrative of global connections and complicities. Referencing archival photographs of Shannon Airport, one of the early showcases for Ireland’s projection of an international image, the animated loops and drawings in Layover represent a shift from the stasis of the printed image to the transient and ephemeral disorientation of video and live social media feeds. The history of Shannon Airport encompasses a range of disparate visual documentation including early aviation in Ireland, foreign and domestic military aircraft, and the invention of duty-free shopping.

Halftone reprography enables imagery which oscillates between states of dissolution and resolution based on the proximity of the viewer. In Layover, improvisations on the halftone are brought about through works on paper and introducing moving image elements by way of experimental animation processes. Taking a single cropped image as a starting frame, subsequent frames are stacked and layered creating a cyclical loop between coherent and incoherent visual states. The resulting layering and diffusion within the animated works touch upon themes of distortion and obfuscation as it plays out in the digital world.

Lauren Conway and Barry Gibbons, both based in Dublin, began their collaboration in March 2025. Their work together has to date included drawing, printmaking, and experimental animation. Conversations which arose during the making of this project considered: dots and loops, cropping as investigation, aviation slang, physical distance with halftone, caput mortuum pigment, molecular movement, and processes of co-authorship.

The Collision Project is produced and curated by Screen Service in partnership with STARLING, Limerick and funded by the Arts Council of Ireland 2025.

screenservice.ie | https://starlingprojects.ie

ARTISTS 
Lauren Conway
Cillian Finnerty 
Barry Gibbons 
Lauren Conway 
Kate Hynes 
Sarah Long 
Tara Mc Ginn



















Images: Richard Harvey, Glancestealer Productions 
Visual and Publication design: Cian Pawle-Bates