Birr Vintage Week and Arts Festival 2021
This story begins in Emmet Square, Birr, Co.Offaly, Ireland. In the centre of this town stands an empty column which was once occupied by the statue of a conqueror, the Duke of Cumberland. Since its construction in 1746 this statue served as a warning against rebellion to the local townspeople of Birr by openly celebrating the Duke’s brutal victory on behalf of the English over the Scots at the Battle of Culloden. The statue was eventually removed in 1915, and the top of the column has stood hauntingly empty ever since.
In 2021, this curiously empty space at the top of the column inspired international Curator Ric Kasini Kadour to organize a project entitled “Empty Columns are a Place to Dream”. I received an invitation to participate in this project, along with 17 other artists from various countries, including Belgium, Ireland, Iran, Canada and Israel.
This project began with each artist receiving a black-and-white archival photograph of the empty column to work with, and an invitation to envision what they would place on top; an invitation to create a monument that represented the ideas, messages and hopes that they would each like to pass down to future generations.
Having graduated from college, I spent a year living in Cork city and working in a restaurant, so I got familiar with Ireland. This green island beckons me back every couple of years, so it was great to attend the Vintage Week and Arts Festival as a guest of the town of Birr.
As my contribution, I proposed a tree. I’ve read a lot about trees in Ireland and the unfortunate disappearance of many of them. In fact, only 1% (sic!) of Ireland’s original tree population remains, which makes it the most deforested country in the world. The tree represented in my collage work is an Oak. My piece references Irish myths and legends related to five extraordinary trees, focusing on a specific story about an Oak tree named Eo Mugna.
Collage Workshops
During the festival I also facilitated two collage workshops. By means of these workshops, I encouraged the residents of Birr to begin work with the image of the empty column (a sight so familiar to them) just like our team of international artists, and to envision what they would place on its top…
Imagine…
… that instead of putting up a column featuring a figure of the Duke of Cumberland in the town centre, people simply planted a tree. The tree would now be almost 300 years old. In my collage, that tree is an Oak. I can’t imagine a better monument for Birr or any other place in the world. In the past, people prayed to the spirits before cutting down a tree. There were various prayers to the maple, elm, ash and oak. Had we planted a tree in the town centre in the 18th century, perhaps we would have remained faithful to Ireland’s forests and avoided their destruction. Climate change might not have been as dramatic. Indeed, we are increasingly conscious of the damage humanity has inflicted upon nature. This is not enough. Cumberland defeated the Scots. We no longer need wars and military victories. We need unity. We need deep reconciliation between all living creatures. We need to sit together (under a tree) and perceive the beauty of the world again. Let this beauty inspire us and endow us with enough imagination to find solutions to protect our shared world. My collage depicts Ireland’s most beautiful monument, one of the sacred trees – the Oak, which according to legend bore apples, acorns and hazelnuts. It is a symbol of diversity and richness. This tree is not alone. It is surrounded by birds (redstarts, blackbirds, praying mantis, pinkies…) and plants (fuchsia, asters, bellflower, bitter vetch, clover…). It is not self-sufficient. Neither are we.
To plant an oak…
Do you what the best part is, my friends? I had the honour of planting an Oak tree here on the Birr Castle grounds!!! Thank you Birr Castle Gardens for this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. I did it on August 18, 2021. I’ve got my own tree.
