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Eabha Cleary

Shadow Paradise

In response to the slow violence caused by corporate influence and growing globalist factors and to the collective ‘cancelled’ future, Eabha aims to identify zones of resistance, by following three lines of enquiry – political, environmental, and somatic. Employing speculative forms of making and guided by the dèrive methods of the Situationists, Eabha has explored Atha na Clocha, Co. Mayo, an old stone cottage on an acre of land, never linked up with water or electricity, and left to grow wild for many years. Having spent much of her childhood on this land which was once surrounded by sprawling bogland and natural Irish woodlands. After almost a decade of not visiting following the loss of her father- the plot of land has grown wild and feral, but the surrounding bog has been turned into a Sitka spruce plantation. Once, these forests were buzzing with nature and life- now, they are stagnant and filled with sickness. This plantation is one example of the slow violence caused by corporate and capitalist motivations and encapsulates the damage. Despite this, Eabha taps into a presence of the unseen, the unknown, the not yet understood in this place. There is a magical resistance in Atha na Clocha, staying wild and alive, a temporary autonomous zone, unbought and untouched by the surrounding plantations, resisting by its mere existence. Through Eabha’s practice, she works to identify the magic that is there. The course of human nature and nature itself has been altered by external corporate powers, however, through time-based, intuitive methods, Eabha aims to identify the elements which defy this.

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