ARTEFACTS OF A FAILED FUTURE (2022)
'Artefacts of a Failed Future' emerged from an 'urban void' located along the outskirts of Dublin City. This urban void is a byproduct of Ireland's Celtic Tiger era, a period of excessive economic neoliberal growth before the global recession of 2008.
Granite bedrock and large concrete boulders leftover material from the recession sit aimlessly about the site to this day.
This void site has become a portal suspended between alternate realms; a false utopian future and a neglected dystopian present. Lingering in a seemingly perpetual liminal space a metamorphosis is occurring one which will soon emerge. Through digital and analogue photographic processes debris, ash, soil and objects from the site are represented as mutations and artefacts conjured within this urban portal.
Salvaged from the pits of fires lit within this urban void, many of these ‘mutations' are soaked in a deep red light reminiscent of blood, flesh and the body. Other forms glisten and glow evoking a cosmic celestial aura.
The fires present on this landscape become portals to the ancient fires of our ancestors, who had a deeper connection and understanding with the earth, sun and stars.
Through their celestial essence, these artefacts remind us that
‘‘We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.’’
- Carl Sagan