"THE building is possessed by children, inside and out, past and present," says Martin Drury, director of the Ark. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and tomorrow, visitors to Temple Bar's cultural centre for children will have a chance to view this "possession". Easily viewed from the street, the panels of the massive windows in the building have been filled with the faces of 240 children, photographed by Enda O'Brien.
Inside, the visitor will meet 3,000 more children, as photographed by each other in the Ark's interactive exhibition, Once in a Life - A Celebration of Children, Time and Photography. This large installation will be accompanied by a soundtrack of children speaking about their lives.
Also on view are the 50 period photographs of children - at work and at play - which were part of the Once in a Life exhibition, taken from collections north and south. For the last three months, the photos have been on view only to children between the ages of nine and 13. As well as scrutinising photographs of children their own age taken 100 years ago, the children learned about the evolution of photography, and how to design a poster using a computer. Most irresistible of all, they took photographs of each other, using whatever props took their fancy.
For today and tomorrow only, visitors of all ages can come to the Ark and find out what the children got up to, as well as to enjoy the large installation of photographs which they took of each other, complete with props ranging from rollerblades to toy horses and tin whistles.
"This is our way of celebrating the culmination of Once in a Life," says Martin Drury. "It has been our first big project and we want people to have a look at the results."
Of the many period photographs on display which were the work of Father Browne, there is one of an elderly, bearded man and his young grandson, taken in 1928. Less than two months ago, the origins of the photo became clear when the sister of the little boy in the photo recognised her brother and contacted Martin Drury. It emerged that her brother, Oliver Murray, is now 70 years old, living in Crumlin and working as a caretaker at St Agnes's School.
Although he was only three at the time, he still has dim memories of his photograph being taken with his grandfather (John Behan, then 77).
In a nice follow up of the generations, Martin Drury then arranged for a photograph to be taken of Oliver Murray with his seven year old grandson David. This new photograph, of Oliver Murray as a grandfather with his own grandson, now hangs alongside the original Father Browne print, where he is a little blonde scrap of a boy clutching a piece of bread and butter in one hand and holding on to his grandfather with the other.