My installation 'Shadow Paradise' combines a two-channel projection-mapped video piece, a sound piece & two 4x8ft blackboard drawings. The title plays homage to Burial's EP 'Antidawn', which was a major influence on my work. The work responds to the slow violence to the environment and culture caused by growing corporate influence, globalism and the collective ‘cancelled’ future. Through an exploration of my an abandoned plot of land visited by my family throughout my childhood, Atha na Clocha in Co. Mayo, I sought to identify zones of resistance.'An old stone cottage sits on a wild acre of land, off-grid. After almost a decade of not visiting following the loss of my father— the plot of land has grown wild and feral, however the surrounding bog has been turned into a Sitka spruce plantation. Once, these forests were buzzing with nature and life— now, they are stagnant and filled with sickness. This plantation is just one example of the slow violence caused by corporate and capitalist motivations. Despite this, I have been aware of a presence of the unseen, the unknown, and the not yet understood in this place. There is a magical resistance in Atha na Clocha, staying wild and alive, a temporary autonomous zone, unbought and untouched by the surrounding plantations, resisting by its mere existence. I have found that there is magic here. The course of human nature and nature itself has been altered by external corporate powers. This work is my attempt to identify the elements which defy this.’
