WHEN PHOTOGRAPHER JEANETTE Lowe first returned to the place where her mother and grandmother spent their lives, she took a portrait that grabbed international attention.

‘Beach Boys’ – the final photograph in the slideshow below – became part of the Taylor Wessing Portrait Photography exhibition at the London National Portrait Gallery three years ago. It is a portrait of two of the modern inhabitants of Pearse House flats in Dublin’s inner city.

Two years later, her exhibition on ‘The Flats’ won a People’s Choice Award at the PhotoIreland Festival.

Now Jeanette’s portraits, her old family photographic archive from life in Pearse House, and hundreds of photos contributed by locals are being featured in a dual-location exhibition.

Launched by Dublin Lord Mayor Oisín Quinn last night, Pearse House: Village in the City is on at the National Photographic Archive at Meeting House Square in Temple Bar. It is also running in Flat 3b in Pearse House which has had a 1930s installation – including antique wallpaper and furniture – placed in the former home.

The main picture on this piece is of some of Jeanette’s uncles, who grew up alongside her mother in the flats. Speaking about this to TheJournal.ie last year, Jeanette said:

I have history here, in the flats. It’s now important to me to engage with the local community by bringing art inside the flats, and also to engage with those of us living outside the flats by giving us a reason to visit somewhere we may perceive as an alien environment.

The exhibition runs from now until Sunday, 6 October. See opening times for the NPA here. See more about the Flat 3b venue and opening hours here.

All colour photographs © Jeanette Lowe.