LOST: delineations is a keen consideration of what happens in a landscape after the land has gone through conversion to an industrial scale farming model. Specifically a system of long-established native hedgerows.
It is an examination of “the difference between non-intervention and taking human responsibility” (Masanobu Fukuokas), in the wake of such a happening. And asks how far human and non-human communities can be stretched in the face of these intensive farming and development models. It is a consideration of a phenomenon called solastalgia – emotional or existential distress caused by environmental changes.
Through installation, soundscape (created for this work by Natalia Beylis) and sculptural element, the works asks the question of what cost, other than financial has this action had. The artist has used materials which were charred, ground and collected from this space in its present state to transform or at the very least confront the human grief and meaningfully mark that once, this place was alive.
“Nearly all of the sounds for this piece were recorded in Drumnadubber, Co. Leitrim. The birdsong at the start and at the end was captured in a section of commercial forestry that has since been clear felled.
Another part of the piece, empty of birdsong, was recorded several years later in the new wild fledgling forest that has grown in the wake of the clearfell.
Aside from the blackbird, all of the species of birds whose names are identified in this piece are currently on the ‘Red List of Birds of High Conservation in Ireland’.
When the birds on this list are gone, it will only be through these types of recordings that we will remember their voices. For now, we eagerly await the imminent return of the birds to the young woodland at Drumndubber” (Natalia Beylis, 2023).
