This Is What We Call Progress is a short film set in the drawing-room of 18th Century Newbridge House, Donabate, near Dublin, a Georgian Villa built to the design of James Gibbs in 1747 for the Archbishop of Dublin, Charles Cobbe.
His great grand-daughter Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904) who was born in Newbridge House became a writer, social reformer, anti-vivisection activist, and a leading women’s suffrage campaigner. In this film a group of young women Benedit Akemba, Drucille Akemba, Gabriella Ogwude and Ihuaku Igbosonu who collectively call themselves My Sisters Keeper assert their agency surrounded by oil paintings of colonial masters. The film explores ideas of how cultural identities are formed and represented in the public realm and the concerns expressed by young multi-ethnic youth growing up in a time of rapid change in Ireland and internationally.
