Mountain (Procession) is part of a series of works, counter-mapping a journey to Croagh Patrick in County Mayo. “Procession” captured crossing the land and sea, back to Europe out of the UK and borders that are both perceived and real, as I traveled to the mountain, mapping the entire journey in film and drawing for CHAT Festival in the year of pilgrimage https://pilgrimchat.chat-arch.org/?p=372 I am interested in our human connections to place. The Gaelic says how many steps.
Thèid dùthchas an agaidh nan creag. Literally ‘Ourselves against the rocks’, although a translation, like many does not do the original any justice. A point on the power and potency of language. The piece is an acknowledgement of cultural colonisation and the imperial dismantling of older ways and connections. In spite of everything some cultures are still here, by a miracle, and the piece acknowledges those and all the others that we have seen driven to extinction, to the detriment of our human history and in the name of progress. The rock is eternally solid and in contrast the ladder so fragile.