Meet the Artist
Siobhán McDonald is an Irish artist based in Dublin. Her practice draws attention to contemporary topics dealing with air, breath and atmospheric phenomena, weaving scientific knowledge into her art in a poetic and thoughtful manner, emphasising field work and collaboration she works with natural materials, withdrawing them from their cycles of generation, growth and decay. This process gives form to a range of projects which consider our place on Earth in the context of geological time. Her work with glaciers and other natural phenomena deploys a unique artistic language that gives form to intangible and richly varied processes including painting, drawing, film and sound.
Resonances III Project
To Breathe
Together with scientists at the JRC and Trinity College Dublin, artist Siobhán McDonald revisited historical processes of botanic image making to create drawings and 3D works of plants that coexist with toxicity. Using air-borne pollutants collected from EU cities, ash and film footage from EU volcanoes, she created drawings, paintings and film works to show how plants and humans are adapting to air pollution, both now and historically. These included ...
- Breathe, a multi-platform project, responds to the broader context of air and how our breathing has changed due to the long process of human evolution and the fact that everything breathes, and everything is interconnected through breath. The film weaves together narratives of studies in human breath, medicine and ancient plant remedies to explore the idea of coexistence in a world moved by invisible networks. Research was conducted in response to Wilhelm Pfeffer’s chronophotographic experiment involving the stages of plant growth. The project was graciously supported by Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden, for the exhibition Of Plants and People.
- Connected by Air, which takes as its subject the delicate ecologies and co-existence between the lungs of the earth, humans and plants. The project explores a selection of major European volcanoes and points to the cycle of the earth breathing within the carbon cycle of our ecosystems. The work premiered at the Datami exhibition at BOZAR in 2020, focusing on air and how we, as humans, can affect our surroundings. The installation is composed of a series of glass prisms embellished from the repeated application of thin, transparent layers of pigment made from volcanic ash to form an optical quality surface. The artwork was recently acquired for the Arts Council’s collection of Ireland, and formed a display of works by Siobhan McDonald at VOLTA, Basel in June 2019.
A collaboration between Siobhán McDonald, Francesco Mugnai, Jean-Philippe Putaud and Tullio Ricci (INGV).
Continued collaboration @ JRC (2021-)
Listening to Soil & the Critical Zone
Resonances III led Siobhán to the STUDIOTOPIA project, a cultural exchange and art-science residency programme between different countries, artists and scientists, including the JRC.
In a delicate enquiry using drawing, sound and film Siobhán looked at processes in the earth, such as the melting of the glaciers into the water cycle – which we as humans accelerate through our existence on the planet. She worked with Irish scientist Professor Chris Bean, JRC soil scientist Arwyn Jones, Teresa Lettieri, and Emily Shuckburgh to develop a project focused on SDG Goal 13 (Climate action) and Goal 14 (Life Below Water) in the framework of the STUDIOTOPIA scientists-in-residence programme. Their collaboration started when Siobhán asked Chris to bring her on a fieldtrip to listen to the heartbeat of the Vatnajökull glacier in Iceland. Since then the pair have talked about signals felt from the interface of land and deep oceans.
Their project was born from a mutual interest in a thin area between the soil and the rocks where all systems connect described as the Critical Zone; it seeks to explore how our human activities affect frequencies within this Zone, that then change the planet's fragile equilibrium.
And so Siobhán was back in residency at JRC Ispra, to exchange with Arwyn, explore the soil library, collect soil samples to make pigments, and discover the Lago Maggiore as the place where Alessandro Volta first discovered Methane in 1776. She gave more insights into their collaboration during a presentation on 06/12/2022 to JRC colleagues (and live-stream). They also hoped to represent current issues with an art installation of Siobhan’s work, at the upcoming World Soil Conference in Glasgow in 2022, and re-connect those who might have lost touch with soil.
The STUDIOTOPIA Art&Science residency programme culminated in the travelling exhibition Colliding Epistemes (BOZAR Brussels, Belgium, Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Poland, Cluj Cultural Centre, Romania), with 13 residencies bringing together artists and scientists. Listening to Soil was also exhibited at the at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria, as part of the STUDIO(dys)TOPIA – At the Peak of Humankind Exhibition as part of a larger installation of Siobhán's: INVISIBLE SEAM.
During the presentation on 06/12/2021 Siobhán gave further insight into this work for both STUDIOTOPIA and the JRC, currently focused on the Critical Zone, the living thing beneath the surface of the ground.
LISTENING TO SOIL is a multi-disciplinary project with, at its core, a collection of soil samples from across Europe. These are the source of a series of works remembered in ancient archaeological practices. The project invites the audience to physically question our relationship to the environment and review the geology and fingerprint of soil. The work will connect to the elements and create an unexpected gathering place for visitors.
She recounted her study of soil, bog lands, viruses and bacteria which are emerging as the permafrost and icecaps melt. During the lockdown in Ireland, she extracted methane from the bog lands and used it to harvest ink, by placing this gas into carbonated charcoal. Thinking of the above/below divide of the Critical Zone, and how things might be able to survive on ruined land, she took mushrooms from the ground. She then placed her ink paintings in incubators under mushrooms, creating artworks that smell like the earth and derive directly from it. In this way, the artworks, through the amazing effects of ink, convey the threatening and lethal power of nature, its living and dark presence, and its poisonous and medicinal aspects. She described her visits to the JRC site, to the soil atlas and the soil library, with soils from each country. She experimented on soil samples using sound and investigated the intersection between materials, landscape, technology and culture; keeping in mind our ancient relationship with soil and wondering what the soils of the future will look like. She described how Arwyn opened her mind and helped her embed extraordinary aspects of research in artistic work; such as tracing the idea of air into soil. Siobhán expressed her interest in the interconnectedness, interdependence and importance of all living things, as well as her concern about our future living conditions
Arwyn Jones was also present and commented on how an alternative representation of scientific work could be mesmerising. Moreover, he appreciated being able to talk with Siobhan about how soil is the Critical Zone, but is hugely undervalued by our urban society, which is detached from food production and nature. Together with Siobhan, he is hoping to develop a policy for soil protection and health in the EU, one of the new missions of the Horizon Europe program. He mentioned the interesting aspect of soil literacy, in which awareness, citizen engagement and the use of different media come together to communicate to society why soil is important and needs to be protected, especially for the Green deal to succeed.
They are hoping to represent current issues with an art installation of Siobhan’s work, at the upcoming World Soil Conference in Glasgow in 2022, and re-connect those who might have lost touch with soil.
STUDIOTOPIA – Art meets Science in the Anthropocene (2019-2022) is an initiative that aims to increase collaborations between cultural and research institutions, academia, innovation centers, creatives and citizens. The initiative consists of eight European cultural institutions: Center for Fine Arts (BOZAR) and GLUON in Brussels, Ars Electronica in Linz, Cluj Cultural Centre in Cluj, Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Onassis Stegi in Athens, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Laboral in Gijon. STUDIOTOPIA supports scientist-residencies in artists studio. STUDIOTOPIA is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
Videos
Watch a documentary of Siobhán's recent solo exhibition and latest projects, a number of which have been shaped and influenced by her experience as a resident artist at JRC, and her close and productive collaboration with JRC soil scientist Arwyn Jones. |