Tréimhse

Earth Rising at IMMA, 2022

Tréimhse was a GPS-triggered soundwalk in IMMA's formal gardens, developed in collaboration by curator Shannon Carroll and artist Rosie O'Reilly for the gallery's inaugural Earth Rising festival.

If the Morrígan, the wise crow and great queen in Irish mythology, could tell you a story, what would she say and where would she bring you?

At Earth Rising, she appeared as the guide for the walk. The walk played on the need in these troubled times for what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls re-story-ation: our relationship with the land cannot heal until we hear its stories, and someone must tell them (Braiding Sweetgrass, 2013). Using field recording, sound, and storytelling to lay down new pathways, the walk placed the Irish language and its close ecological observation at the heart of its storytelling. Reimagining the gardens as Gaeilge, the Morrígan brought into focus the need for anti colonial methodologies of care and profound ecological awareness to unsilence and imagine new worlds.

Audience members wore the Morrígan headpiece as a guide, connected to a mobile device and listening system inside, which triggered recordings at key points as they made their way through the gardens.