Ecologies

Eco Showboat

CLEARY CONNOLLY OUTLINE THEIR RECENT TOUR OF IRISH WATER- WAYS TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE.

THERE IS A growing awareness in environmentalist circles that the arts community is uniquely placed to develop conversations around climate change and to generate positive creative action. We began work on the Eco Showboat project in 2019 as an arts initiative aimed at raising awareness of climate change. Our plan was to slowly tour the island’s waterways aboard a zero-carbon riverboat. We wanted to interact with local communities, work with regional artists and bring thinkers from the scientific world to talk about local and global environmental issues. We initially received support from several local authority arts offices, and eventually from Creative Ireland and the Arts Council, which allowed us to develop a significant island-wide arts project with events on waterways involving artists across the country. Our aim was to mobilise the arts community to create climate action, but we were aware that any such action needed to be based on science. An SFI Discover Award, along with continuous support from LAWPRO – the local authority waters programme – allowed us to develop and host a parallel series of scientific workshops and talks documenting biodiversity and explaining some of the issues threatening the freshwater environments we would be passing through.

The first challenge we faced was finding and fitting out a boat, suitable to become a zero-carbon floating arts platform. Waterways Ireland offered us a 21-year lease on a heritage barge, the 48M, which, like almost all boats on Irish waterways, was fitted with a diesel motor that we had to remove, along with all the existing wooden interior that was riddled with dry rot. It became clear to us that fitting out a 30-tonne barge as a zero-carbon arts platform was going to be a long and expensive project, not helped by the pandemic, which was slowing production and forcing up prices. In 2021, to keep the arts project on programme, we invested in a smaller boat, the Mayfly, a converted yacht which we fitted out with an inboard electric motor, powered by a battery bank charged by a suspended solar array.

While work continued on the 48M in Tullamore Harbour, we launched the Mayfly at the Hunt Museum in Limerick on 1 May and began our Shannon-Erne expedition, a four-month voyage across rivers, lakes and canals that would bring us as far as Enniskillen, visiting 16 ports along the way, which would host our ‘Eco-Sunday’ events – all of this using only solar power.

Navigating on a smaller boat meant that these public events needed to happen on the waterside, rather than aboard the vessel. We set about designing and building a sculptural pop-up shelter made from repurposed beach parasols – an outdoor projection space to be erected rapidly, resist wind, provide shelter, channel rainwater, provide good acoustics and a comfortable setting for small group workshops. The Pangolin Pavilion, as we eventually called it, was designed and built between winter 2021 and spring 2022 at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.

One of the objectives of this year’s expedition is to make River Movie, a long video work exploring the beauty of the Shannon and the Erne waterways and reflecting on scientific and artistic ideas for saving this environment from everything that threatens it today – such as pollution, invasive and endangered species, climate change, and so on.

In 2023 we are planning an extensive programme for Dublin and the east of the country, navigating the Royal and Grand Canals and the Barrow, hopefully aboard a solar powered 48M. We also want to visit towns and cities with their own waterways, sometimes unconnected with the network of rivers, lakes and canals that we call our Inland Waterways, but accessible to the Mayfly on her trailer. The future horizon of the project will involve creating a more perennial programme involving both boats and perhaps developing a more maritime international programme.

Cleary Connolly is an artist duo (Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly) working between Ireland and Paris.

connolly-cleary.com

The Mayfly pontoon, Eco Showboat Shannon Erne Expedition, July 2022; photograph courtesy Connolly Cleary.

Land-made

PADRAIG CUNNINGHAM OUTLINES HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ECO SHOWBOAT SHANNON ERNE EXPEDITION AT LOUGH KEY.

Padraig Cunningham and Anna Macleod, Ephemera, installation in Lough Key, 31 July 2022, Eco Showboat Shannon Erne Expedition; photograph courtesy the artists.

LED BY THE artist duo, Cleary Connolly, the recent Eco Showboat expedition up the River Shannon, involved the vessel cutting, diving, and sloshing its way northwards, seeing where the prevailing winds (and solar power) would take art and ecology. My contribution to the project was twofold; firstly, Ephemera (2022) a sculptural collaboration with Anna Macleod which centered around the shores of Lough Key in Roscommon and the mayfly’s life cycle. Secondly, Pulse of a Stone examined the mapping of the Shannon cave system and in particular, a section called the mayfly – named by the cavers who first explored it and found mayfly in the stream deep underground.

The mayfly is seen as indicator species of the health of water. With climate crisis and increasing use of pesticides in farming, insect populations have dramatically decreased, with the precarious short-lived mayfly being particularly susceptible to environmental fluctuations. The Eco Showboat project’s ecological focus reflected our own concerns and allowed us to follow the mayfly’s struggle, its beauty and resilience as a symbolic paradigm.

A sculpture, consisting of an armature of gunbarrel steel that held an embroidered banner with the word ‘mayfly’, was set out in the lake. Suspended above the surface of the water, its floating and gentle movement was a nod to the insect’s mating dance. A commissioned composition by Shahab Coohe gave voice to a ‘mute-thing’ and set the tone for the film work. These three elements were brought together during the Eco Sunday event, along with a large sculpture of a mayfly made by fifth and sixthclass schoolchildren, as part of workshops led by Anna.

‘Pulse of a Stone’ brought me to a cave close to the source of the River Shannon itself. The cave entrance is in County Fermanagh but crosses the border underground and is mostly located in County Cavan, where it was discovered in 1980 by Fermanagh-based

cavers, the Reyfad Group. One of the members, Rev George Pitt became trapped after a collapse in one of the tight passages. A major rescue attempt ensued, and he was released after ten hours (and the composition of many sermons). After another collapse in 1995, this section was deemed too dangerous to explore. The subterranean world delves beneath cartographic structures, a landscape of another sort and time, where geological forces stretch to unthinkable duration. One intuits a deeper time, suggesting that we are embedded in and of duration – not only man-made, but land-made.

One of the sculptures is titled Aven (2022) after a piece of mapping software used to interpret data from cave surveys. Once the data has been inputted to Aven, it creates a simplified 3D model or visualisation of the cave. The sculpture focused on the model of Shannon cave and the Mayfly section, which consists of 96 vertical painted rods corresponding to the ‘stations’ of the cave coordinates.

Exploring the Shannon cave itself requires experience beyond my abilities; however, I ventured to some of the surrounding caves. One of the cavers described the physicality of caving as a “proper workout… like yoga with rocks”, which makes one aware of flesh against cold stone. In a narrow passage, there is the paradox of feeling cocooned and safe, while aware of the great mass and weight above you. The three sculptures Fold 1, 2 and 3 (2022) embody these forces. Made from sheet metal that has been crushed with a large crane grabber, the works have a contrast of weight and lightness. Despite their strength, they have an ephemeral quality, as if they are in motion – a fluid presence, a mobile cutout in the land.

Padraig Cunningham is an artist based in County Roscommon.

padraigcunningham.com

Mesocosm

CHRISTINE MACKEY ASSEMBLES A GLOSSARY OF KEY TERMS PERTI- NENT TO HER ECO SHOWBOAT RESEARCH PROJECT.

MESOCOSM: ‘medium worlds’

FROM THE GREEK meso (which translates as ‘medium’) and cosm (meaning ‘world’). These medium worlds consist of living components (such as plants, animals, bacteria) and non-human components (like water, rocks, and sand). In a scientific context, a mesocosm is a “bounded and partially enclosed outdoor experiment to bridge the gap between the laboratory and the real world in environmental science.”1

This ‘middle’ term is useful in outlining the parameters of my recent research project, ‘Mesocosm’, and its iterative parts. It involves growing out an experimental ecosystem closest to the real world that has the capacity to change and adapt according to the material conditions of the landscape, the sites, and its embodied biological structure.

AGERE: ‘to set into motion’ The lineage of this project came through a long-term engagement in working with plants, as well as the saving and public distribution of seeds. For Eco Showboat I was interested in working with the capacity of plants as indicators of climate change. How they can harvest pollutants from soil and water systems, and heal and nurture damaged planetary systems, motivated my practice into new forms of cultivation with and for the plants.

ARCHEIN: ‘to begin’ Some basic research on the history of floating islands and artificial wetlands – and how artists have contemporised these forms – steered the project towards multimodal structures. These ranged from chinampas – artificial floating islands invented by the Aztec civilization – and crannogs in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, which were generally built on lakes and estuaries, to an edible farm on a reclaimed barge by artist Mary Mattingly.

QUAERO: ‘to seek out’ Researching current scientific developments in this area of floating wetlands and various forms revealed that the majority, constructed from polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl foam, eventually degrade and leak pollutants into the water systems.

MATER: ‘to work out stuff ’ So what was the alternative to plastic? Daily walks around the edge of Glenade Lake drew my attention to an abundance of

mainly willow and reeds. Joe Hogan’s book, Basketmaking in Ireland (Wordwell, 2001), outlines different types of folk structures woven in Ireland. Here the potato skib or ciseog became a form to be reimaged within the constraints of this project. These traditional baskets were used to strain and serve potatoes, or in some cases, were upturned and used in place of a table as a communal serving plate for all to eat from. I attended a series of workshops with Ciaran Hogan, learning the basics of willow weaving, in order to construct a series of large-scale circular forms – the ‘mother’ baskets.

SOCIUS: ‘to invite in’ Through the Creative Leitrim arts programme, I engaged willow weaver Helena Golden and several artist members of the Corryeolus Women’s Group. Together we wove a series of smaller ‘daughter’ baskets that were structurally linked to the ‘mother’.

CÓLÓ: ‘to cultivate a space’ These temporary islands are currently afloat on Blackrock Pond, where they will attract and provide an alternative habitat for multiple land and water species. These structures can work in several ways: as bioremediators to purify water; or as nesting stations for other species to rest in and take root. They can become safe shelters for other species due to habitat loss and change for flora and fauna. Comprising complex and unique habitats specific to communities and places, this project draws attention to how vulnerable our world is, and how we humans impact negatively on these systems; however, it also highlights creative potential that we can act on.2

Christine Mackey is an artist based in North Leitrim, whose research-based practice is rooted in environmental concerns and meaningful participation across complex climatic issues iterated through a range of site-specific socially engaged contexts pursued through the subject of the seed and the agency of plant matter.

christinemackey.info

1 Eugene P. Odum, ‘The Mesocosm’, BioScience, 34 (9), Oxford University Press, October 1984, pp 558-562.

2 I will be advancing the installation capabilities of ‘Mesocosm’ at INTERFACE this Autumn, as part of an ongoing residency programme, ‘Woodland & Ecology’.

Christine Mackey, launch of ‘Mesocosm’, 4 August 2022; photograph by Cían Flynn, courtesy the artist and Eco Showboat.

Denis Connolly and Anne Cleary onboard the Mayfly, Eco Showboat Shannon Erne Expedition, August 2022; photograph courtesy Connolly Cleary.

Pangolin Pavilion, ‘Slow Looking’ workshops, Acres Lake, Eco Showboat Shannon Erne Expedition, August 2022; photograph courtesy Connolly Cleary.

Christine Mackey, launch of ‘Mesocosm’, 4 August 2022; photograph © and courtesy the artist.