My work is centred around man-made objects and their potential to build relationships outside of the ones they have with humans. My work is an installation which exists both indoors and outdoors. Using civic objects such as bicycle racks, climbing frames, Dublin bus paint, glass bottles, scientific lenses and organic materials such as mosses lichens and wood I form relationships the synthesized and organic. In the work, I explore these objects while giving them agency to act outside of their human-centred relationships. These relationships are then archived through large-scale cyanotypes on muslin. The outdoor work invites the earth to do the mark-making; an aged, dilapidated climbing frame with a past life in aiding haptic learning is placed in a wildflower meadow on the grounds of the college. The chiffon fabric stretched between the bars attempt to act as spiderwebs. Considering the human desire to take, synthesise and mass-produced materials in nature this fabric takes on the form of something science still hasn’t been able to replicate or farm, the humble spiderweb. As the plastic threads only hold similar aesthetic properties to the spiderweb insects can move freely along it, sometimes leaving trails. By the end of the exhibition, the once-white fabric will be left with markers of its surrounding ecology. The work is titled Crither placing it within the Irish context. As a country with huge ties to the land, the native language engages in a wider understanding of nature. How we treat things is echoed in how we speak of them. When facing the current environmental crisis, we must look to the knowledge systems which encourage symbiotic relationships with the land. Ones that are open to the possibilities of materials with and without our full understanding of them.
