window on eden

Site-responsive installation | ArtFarm, Co. Galway, Ireland | Autumn 2022

Part of a series of land-based sculptures developed during a month-long residency in rural County Galway in autumn 2022, this ephemeral installation is set within a corridor between two contrasting ecologies: a tract of privately-owned farmland grown wild and a government-managed forestry plantation. Using only storm-fallen branches from both sides of the aisle, already softened by moss and mycelium, I lashed together an organic portal with cotton twine to frame the point where these two distinct versions of “nature” meet.

Rather than imposing an image onto the land, the window both disrupted and focused the view, making palpable the tension already present between the soft chaos of native forest on one side and the rigid order of timber production on the other. It begs us to examine the relative value of these two types of woodland, and to question humanity’s role — as cultivator, disruptor, or steward — in these overlapping ecosystems?

Unannounced and quietly mythic in presence, the work was an offering only for those who stumbled upon it to witness the dialogue between old and new, wild and worked, organic growth and purpose-driven cultivation. Left to weather and decay, it returned to the forest floor over time, its disappearance completing the gesture.