The project Listening to Soil started collecting soil samples from the Joint Research Soil library, organizing them by location, thus creating a roadmap to the journey soil has taken; the trail along which civilization travels. As the trail progresses across timescales, the PH content changes and the tonality of the soil shifts. The installation is one result of her ongoing dialogue with Arwyn Jones (EU – JRC) and archaeologist Dr Brendan O’Neill (IRL) to chart soil processes and rituals circa 1500 BC.
By constructing a traditional lime kiln to mix lime with clay and soil, Siobhán produced a work entitled, Offering, mimicking the shape of a burial vases vessel, historically meant to enclose cremation ashes.The piece aims to reveal forgotten histories when ecological practices and gathering food were based on the necessity of survival and the cycle of life. The artwork rewinds to a time when people did not exhaust nature.
Siobhán McDonald developed four artworks during a residency hosted by GLUON and part of the STUDIOTOPIA project. All works (Listening to Soil; Cosmic Gas; Methane Lake; Tipping Point) examine particles floating in the air and matter buried underground from past worlds. In an exploration of Arctic permafrost and plants preserved in this depository, the project traces histories of generations of underground systems. Starting with boglands as its protagonist — their ecosystem, history and mythologies — the project considers ideas around time and the preservation of collective memory in that thin layer between soil and rocks, where some of the most important changes in contemporary times are taking place.
Siobhán McDonald’s 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. Siobhán works with natural materials, withdrawing them from their cycles of generation, growth and decay. This ritualized 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.
Discover the other works of this project:
