David O'MaraUp to My Neck (EDT OF 5)

I have worked on building sites and documented my working life for nearly 25 years. In that time, I have struggled to reconcile my identities as both an artist and manual labourer. For all of my lofty ambitions and intellectual pretensions, I am rooted to the dirt of the building site through work.

On site, we make up numbers not personalities; we are not there for our ability to think, we are there to do. Our use is in our physicality, not our intellect. This book brings together an edit of self-portraits and images of co-workers’ feet and work boots. I wanted to bring together the physicality of the building site through these photos and the material used in the book.

The pages of the book are covered in wallpaper I have salvaged from my current job, and the book cover is floor carpet from the same property. The photographs have been stained in the soak water used to separate layers of wallpaper, by which they take on years of soot, tobacco smoke and dust accumulated over time.