Looking Glass by Ror Conaty is a site-specific visual exhibition that will span Cork City for a period of two weeks, occupying 53 billboards spread across 16 locations. Working in collaboration with Notes to Cork, Looking Glass will transform the city into one giant gallery. Using infrared photography, the exhibition exposes the beauty hidden just outside of our visual spectrum, giving people the unique opportunity to compare our waking reality with that which lies just beyond our senses, accenting the presence of overlooked nature cohabiting our urban spaces and amplifying the endurance of the natural world. 

Taking its name from the novel Alice Through the Looking Glass, where the protagonist Alice traveled through her mirror to a fantastical inversion of her world; upon awakening from her dream, Alice bore a new perspective on her reality and the lens through which she views it. 

In this way, Looking Glass will present a vantage point into a greater reality to give viewers a new appreciation of the everyday spaces they inhabit. Post-exhibition, the audience will be left with the memory of this vantage point, recalling it each time they travel through a location, recollecting the beauty they saw exposed through a conventional advertising space. 

With 16 locations spanning Cork City centre and employing the vernacular of street, architectural, and landscape photography, Looking Glass will give people the opportunity to compare their perceived reality of a location with one that lies beyond their senses.