SHUL

Martina O'Brien & Christine Mackey

STAC

2021

Shul, (a Tibetan word for ‘track’, meaning "a mark that remains after that which made it has passed by”) saw artists Martina O’Brien and Christine Mackey respond specifically to Co. Tipperary, to sites/areas where humans have left our mark on, or in, the landscape.

Martina O’Brien’s new body of work looked to explore the geological legacy of the county. Deemed to be Ireland’s most illustrious and prolific mineral locality, the artworks consider the site - specific chronologies of deep-time kept by its stone along with its complex histories of extractivism. Mining took place intermittently at Silvermines for over 1000 years, from the 9th century until 1993 and evidence of this chequered past is still visible in the district including its 19th century engine houses and their close proximity to the remains of modern processing plants, waste heaps and open pits. Realised through film and installation, the artworks also look to examine the ubiquitous presence of rocks in Romantic poetry, and how these sublime descriptions of the earth's material and early environmental discourse presented the earth in its otherness and its nonhuman aspect.