Redd
Paul Carroll
Self-Published
English
Hardcover
First edition of 300
Signed
800 pages
155 × 206 mm
2025
ISBN 9780995626515
Shelf Code I.CAR.2.2
Redd by Paul Carroll explores how communities interact with a selection of Ireland’s 3,192 inland water bodies. These waterways bear witness to the nurturing and destructive rhythms of social and environmental change. The series was conceptualised in the summer of 2018, when persistent high temperatures and water restrictions occurred for the first time in decades. As water levels dropped, a submerged world of discarded remnants of daily life was revealed. Carroll utilises bridges, riverbanks and walls along canals and rivers to peer directly into the waterways. Seasonal water levels and the incidence of natural light on the waters surface shape his process as he captures community interaction within fluvial environs. What emerges is a tableau of ordinary yet haunting objects linked to the lives they once served. Carroll documents these moments, tracing a quiet dialogue between waterways and the communities that rely on them.
Redd reflects on the interplay between natural beauty and human impact, revealing the vulnerability of an ecosystem under pressure. Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency underscores this, noting that the number of pristine Irish rivers has fallen from 500 in 1980 to 20 in 2025. As Ireland transitioned from a struggling economy in the 1980s to an economic powerhouse, globalisation reshaped the landscape and intensified environmental pressures. Carroll’s near-drowning as a child informs the formative, submerged perspective of the series. While fishing, a riverbank collapsed beneath him. For a few moments, he was suspended below the surface, watching his rod drift in the water above, encircled by the earth that had given way. There was a fleeting sense of stark beauty before he pushed off the riverbed to safety. That memory, woven with later explorations of mindfulness, imbues Redd with themes of impermanence and rebirth, underscoring the fragile balance between what we cherish and what we let slip away.
(Source: https://redd.photography/about-redd)
About the Artist
The primary focus of Paul Carroll’s photography is documenting the relationship between people and communities and their intersection and interaction within their landscape and environment.
https://redd.photography
(Source: https://redd.photography/artist-bio-and-info)
