top of page

DEAD RECKONING (ANCESTORS)

An ongoing project that engages with open-ended questions around familial identity, work, and class.

The Constable is the first piece in the new body of work, Dead Reckoning (Ancestors), that began with awareness that there are at least four generations of military men in my family. This patrilineal inheritance runs through my blood. I come from a long line of those who policed the behavior of others. There is violence in this knowing.

​

Myth, fractured stories diluted across generations, conjuring, and imagination intermingle. More fictive archetype than autobiography, The Constable embodies my physical presence as a Royal Irish Constabulary officer, which was the police force of Ireland before the boundaries of North and the Republic existed. Female and male, young and old: these binaries dissolve amidst visions of smoke, rubble, and ruins. 

© 2025 by Erin Elyse Burns

bottom of page