Dereenacappera

Artist In Residence

ARDGROOM, WEST CORK, IRELAND

October 2020

STONES TO LOUGH FADA PART 1

STONES TO LOUGH FADA PART I

A FIELD GUIDE

After spending two weeks just outside Cork City in Garravagh at the cabin at Road Books, I had planned to travel the West Coast of Ireland. A county lock down was introduced so my plans changed. Judy and Peter put me in touch with Frieda and Hans who run an artist in residence on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork - Dereenacappera. I headed across Co. Cork to Argroom, a small village tucked between Kenmare Bay and the Caha mountains.

I stayed for one week exploring the area and documenting my time with film, photography, drawings and recording tunes on my wooden flute and melodica. Some of the tunes were recorded in The Barn and some out in the landscape.

Frieda gave me a tour of their beautiful home, studios and land. They have planted trees over the last 10 years and there are currently about 15,000 trees on their 16 acres of land. Surrounding their 16 acres is a beautiful vista of the Caha mountains and commonage land. A direct route to Lough Fada is to cross the commonage land which is very boggy in parts so Frieda had placed quartz stones from the local beach in small piles as a guide to make the route a little easier for visitors. I followed the stones, sketching and photographing these small piles of stones glowing from the earth along the way. As I arrived to the lake I had recorded 44 piles of stones.

AN INVITATION

When I came back to the UK I made a film from the images and flute recordings. I slowed down the flute recordings and layered these as a sound collage to create a more abstract ethereal soundscape. Words kept coming to mind as I was editing the film. I experimented with overlaying the photographs with these words as visual text and then as voice recordings. I then realised my words didn’t feel right for this project but to invite others to respond to the piece.

The invitations were sent. I wanted the process to unfold organically so I didn’t want to be too specific, just inviting participants to speak words that resonated into a recording device as the film played in whatever way they felt moved. From this I would find a way to bring it all together.

When I received Frieda’s response, I knew her words needed to stand alone as she is so part of the landscape. I decided to make the film in two parts using the same photographs for each film. The first part without the soundscape and just the photographs with spoken word from Frieda followed by a flute tune inspired from the land. The second includes the same photographs, the abstracted soundscape and the voices of eleven participants.

Here is part 1…

Stones to Lough Fada - Part 1