In Commons, Sue Morris reflects on shared land, shared histories, and the shifting thresholds of belonging. Originally conceived as a three‑part work for the Winnowing Basket Project — appearing as a brass plaque, a set‑in flagstone, and a flag across different locations — each iteration subtly altered in form while remaining connected through text in Irish, English, and Punjabi.
For Art in the Park 2026, Commons is presented at Barrack Hill Park in Carndonagh. In this setting, the work continues to explore how public space carries the weight of colonial legacies, migration histories, and contemporary debates around ownership, identity, and inclusion. Morris subverts familiar markers such as plaques, flagstones, and flags — objects often used to assert authority or commemorate power — transforming them instead into gestures of openness and shared belonging. The work invites viewers to reconsider who public space is for, and how communities might imagine more inclusive futures together.
The work draws attention to the complex and often uncomfortable histories that underpin the landscapes we move through every day. While we enjoy public parks and admire artefacts in museums, the ways in which land, wealth, and objects were originally acquired is rarely acknowledged. Morris brings these buried histories to the surface, particularly the deep ties between Inishowen and the legacy of British imperial expansion in India. The reference to the Bath Green in Moville invokes the long shadow of the British East India Company — a reminder that colonial violence, extraction, and displacement are part of the story held within these local spaces.
Yet Commons is not only about inherited histories. It is also deeply personal. Morris’s children — born in Ireland to an Indian father from the Punjab and an English mother — embody the intertwined identities that shape contemporary life. This multicultural lineage resonates with Woody Guthrie’s famous refrain, quoted in the Winnowing Basket Project brief:
“This land is your land n this land is my land… this land was made for you and me.”
Written as a challenge to exclusionary nationalism, the lyric becomes an anchor for Morris’s exploration of who belongs, who claims space, and who is welcomed or refused.
Plaques, flagstones, and flags are usually tools of commemoration or markers of power: they claim territory, assert allegiance, and define who is “inside” or “outside.” In Commons, Morris overturns these associations. Instead of signalling ownership or victory, these objects celebrate openness, inclusion, and shared futures. They reclaim public space for community rather than control — a quiet rejection of anti‑migrant rhetoric and a reminder of the rich, diverse identities that shape contemporary Ireland.
Within the context of the exhibition, Commons operates at the threshold between past and present, belonging and exclusion, nationalism and shared humanity. It invites viewers to consider public space as a site of connection rather than division, encouraging us to look not only at what separates us, but at what we hold in common.
