gated

Currently my research practise is concerned with the the division and enclosure of natural spaces for agricultural purposes in both Ireland and the Netherlands. Following this, I aim to show how this affects the human experience of Rurality, Climate
Catastrophe, Labour and Gender/Sexual Politics. I am motivated by my own personal connection to the idea of Rurality. This motivation is inherited and then intensified as I do not fit the mould of traditional heteronormative rurality or fast movingurbanity so now I retreat into hermetic research of the structures and traditions of where I was born.

I undertake this research through an auto ethno-methodology, journeying out into Irish and Dutch landscapes which I later document through diaristic auto-fiction. Combining this with secondary source material, the work is then realised through performance and expanded print media objects. In these performances, a second persona, Matha takes on the role of the Fae Bard or Fae Farmer. This work comes from one experience of standing between two gates. In the wind, the gates whistle or sing.

As with a lament and the role of Bard or Seanchaí, this work will poses questions to viewers concerning their own positionally to the Rural/Natural, Climate Collapse, the Death of Soil and the constructed divisions of the land(law)scape through musical and fictional elements.