heav(Y) b(La)ck stone 

Maynooth University

2026

heav(Y) b(La)ck stone was a trilogy of film installations presented throughout Maynooth University in 20ft shipping containers, each converted into a wind-and-solar powered miniature cinema. Situated in the University’s North Campus, the artworks collectively explored the hidden infrastructure that undergirds the green transition through the lens of rare earth metals. Echoing long histories of commodities that have shaped empires, economies, and cultures through processes of extraction and exchange – from tea and nutmeg to coal and saltpetre –  these metals are crucial to the technologies driving renewable energy systems, electric mobility, and digital connectivity. In dialogue with Maynooth’s Decarbonisation Zone initiative, heav(Y) b(La)ck stone invited reflection on the wider material landscapes underpinning local climate action. By tracing the material and symbolic presence of Yttrium(Y), Erbium(Er), and other rare earths, the work considered the global interdependencies and the paradoxes of extraction that make decarbonisation possible. 

Developed as part of the Artist in Residence programme for The Co-Creative Lab, a partnership between Kildare County Council and Maynooth University, supported by the Creative Climate Action fund, an initiative of the Creative Ireland Programme.