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Artists in Residence 2020/2021
Mark Clare
UCD Earth Institute in partnership with Dùn Laoghaire Rathdown County Council
My practice doesn’t lie within any one discipline but instead embraces various media and techniques, allowing the work to take multiple forms in both a gallery context as well as alternative venues/locations. Over the last 5 years I have produced work that examines the extent to which human activities have had a significant impact on the Earth’s ecosystems.
I am interested in the potential of science,
philosophy, and aesthetics to enrich my thinking on issues related to climate change and international policies in order to produce work that keeps our attention focused on what’s going on in the environment.
I am especially interested in the potential of art to act as a tool for opening up dialogue and highlighting possibilities and alternative
perspectives - allowing us to ask questions of ourselves, our place within our community and the broader environment.
Mark graduated St. Martins College of Art & Design, London with a BA (Hons) Fine Art Sculpture before completing an MA in Fine Art at the University of Ulster. In 2019 he was selected to participate in the art and biodiversity research residency An Urgent Enquiry in Wexford. National and international solo exhibitions have included; The Little Things Matter - Pro Arts, Oakland USA 2019; If Not You - Sirius Arts Centre, 2017; Que sais-je? - Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, 2015. Recent group shows include The Border -Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin 2020, The Kaunas Biennial - National Museum, Lithuania 2017.
Previous Works
Near Threatened
An Urgent Enquiry
An installation that highlights the effect of habitat loss due to climate change on local biodiversity that came out of An Urgent Enquiry, a three-month research residency. It consists of a 15min HD video projection alongside a continuous slide projection. In the video we see Dr. Aidan O’Hanlon, Curator of Entomology, Natural History Museum pinning a specimen of Osmia aurulenta collected from Ballyteige Burrow, a Special Area of Conservation in Co.Wexford, Ireland.
Osmia aurulenta is a solitary bee that can be found along the East coast of Ireland. It is the only member of the Osmia genus that makes its nest in empty snail shells from a variety of species. Alongside the video is a continuous slide projection documenting a selection of Osmia aurulenta nests in various degrees of construction, photographed along the East coast of Ireland throught 2019. In this same space we hear a narrator lyrically describe the laborious nesting habits of Osmia aurulenta. The source for this narrative is The Wonders of Instinct a novel by Jean Henri Fabre, the 20th century French naturalist whom many consider to be the grandfather of Entomology.
Missing
An Urgent Enquiry
This public intervention produced for An Urgent Enquiry entailed erecting MISSING posters at all Blue and Green Flag beaches in Wexford. These posters consisted of an image of Osmia aurulenta, a solitary bee only found along the East coast of Ireland who makes its nest’s in abandoned snail shells. Solitary Bees pollinate more flowers than any other group including butterflies and birds, ensuring that plant communities are healthy and productive. Without them mammals and birds would not have the seeds, berries, or plants on which they depend. These posters informed the public of the various essential roles that solitary bees play in supporting the biodiversity of their surrounding environment.
This project was hugely successful in drawing attention to the vital role of solitary bees appearing in a number of newspaper articles and a live interview on South Wexford Radio.
Public workshops
An Urgent Enquiry
During the
An Urgent Enquiry residency I had the opportunity to explore local biodiversity and the effects of climate change through interactions with environmental specialists, scientists and local communities.
I organised a number of free public workshops, working with specialists in a variety of fields to deliver them. These workshops were a way to introduce myself to a local audience while at the same time, introducing local audiences to aspects of their community that they might not ordinarily engage with through events such as a
Wild Food Walk in the grounds of Tintern Abbey, a
Seaweed Forage on Baginbun Beach and
The Little Things Matter, a workshop that looks at the incredible contribution phytoplankton make to life on Earth.
