"To give truth the colour and narrative force of fiction," this was Truman Capote's ambition when he wrote ‘In Cold Blood’, the true account of a quadruple homicide in 1960s Kansas. It is the starting point for Non Fiction, a work of lyrical documentary that explores the porous boundary between fact and fiction in photography. Since its beginnings, photography has entertained a complex relation to truth: even the most 'objective' portrait will necessarily involve decisions relating to location, light and pose. In Non Fiction, this tension is pushed to its extreme through a variety of visual strategies, deployed to blur the lines. Images based on rumours, local news stories and chance encounters accumulate and coalesce, forming a narrative that is fluid and multidirectional. It is up to the audience to interpret this narrative, to find keys into it, to give the work meaning. Everything is real, everything is fake, but one thing is certain: truth is at least as strange as fiction.

'Look At Me! Who Am I?' explores the journey of a Muslim woman discovering her lesbian identity in the quiet presence of nature. The photographs reflect her profound conflict between faith, societal expectations, and personal desires, visualised through the use of hijab and religious symbols. Empty spaces, ruined structures, and barren landscapes symbolise the loss of belonging and the search for a new identity. This work is not only a personal exploration but also a representation of the struggle for visibility by those often rendered invisible.

'Beneath | Beofhód' explores the culture and landscape of bogs in the Irish midlands. Beofhód, an Irish word meaning ‘life beneath the sod’, evokes the primal, totemic place of bogs in Celtic culture. The project contemplates social and environmental justice alongside a topographical mapping of peatlands, and a metaphorical exploration of the pre-Christian reverence for elemental energies in the landscape. Drawing on Hynan’s authentic connection with his local community and landscape, the work traces the remnants of industrial peat harvesting which brought economic benefits and formed a strong sense of cultural identity in the region. However, urgent ecological imperatives have created tensions between the remaining small-scale harvesting of the bog and the need to protect and enhance peatland habitat and biodiversity. The work explores the de-industrialisation of the bog; where large-scale peat extraction has ceased, alongside smaller scale turf cutting by communities; still harvesting turf for domestic use. More recent explorations include resurgent landscapes where bogs are actively being restored by communities and Bord na Móna as well as the construction of new wind and solar farms on peatlands. The intention of the work is to show an ancient connection with the landscape, enabling today’s bogland to be re-imagined as both an engagement with the past, and a potent site for climate action in the present. It contemplates the transition in perceptions and use of peatlands and the subsequent social, environmental, economic and cultural impact on the midland’s region.

The sale of citizenship is more commonly known as Golden Passports, or Citizenship-By-Investment. Estate agents sell recently developed apartments that, because of their price, allow the buyer to obtain the passport of that country. To understand how this institutionalised mobility is enacted I rehearsed such a purchase. Performing as an investor I accessed projects that would soon (not) house new citizens or their tenants. Within those viewings, model flats presented as homes whilst the agent and purchaser believed to care about the quality of the finish. Reality was suspended for the duration of the negotiation. Citizenship itself acts only as a means of access to a third country otherwise not granted by the original passport. This disconnect from the nation by the roles played emulates the arbitrariness of citizenship when it is tied to material form as capital. New builds become an outlier as citizenship is usually unseen, the emptiness of the nation state manifested in the failed utopia of new concrete. The nations where this played out remain unnamed.

Primary Succession is a series exploring what we can learn from the landscape as a collaborator rather than subject, challenging colonial traditions of exploitation by seeking a new way of relating to a place as a living entity. The shale bings of West Lothian were created by Scotland’s oil industry in the 19th Century, towering man-made heaps of spent oil-shale dotted across the landscape. Once seen as eyesores, they are now recognised as unique habitats that harbour endangered species. I am interested in what we can learn from this transformational cycle, and how we can approach nature on its own terms. Inspired by the era of the bing’s creation (1860’s-1930’s) I have been using cameras from that time, embracing the unpredictable results and giving up much of my control over the final image. I have also been exploring other ways that I can reduce the separation between human and non-human by testing plant and earth-based chemistry made from material found on the bing, burying negatives there and investigating other ways to allow the bing to influence the project. I’ve been working to reduce the environmental impact of the series by using found, donated and expired film and paper, all of which also invites uncertainty and loss as part of the process.