Doire-Oak grove

In the summer of 2024 after a 5 year rest from Glastonbury festival of Contemporary arts, we were asked to come and create a garden and sculpture install for the Green Futures field.

I used the opportunity to bring back to life a piece of work I had originally created for a garden at 'Bloom in the Park' 2011,- 'Portach' which had won best in show for Engaging spaces and an RHS gold award.

The garden was aimed at raising awareness about the rare bog woodland environment, that was once abundant in Ireland with the Sculpture based on the canopy of an Oak tree.

An Oak is the tree that supports the most biodiversity in Ireland, with its multi layered communities of plants. Its flora and fauna include many different types of moss and ferns, and fungi, sometimes with other smaller trees rooting in its branches as well as many birds and different mammals living amongst the the roots all the way up to the canopy.

The space within the structure aims to give the participants a feeling of protectiveness amongst a dream like space of abundance. The central pillar is made up of bog wood around 5000 to 8000 years old, that once made up the forests that covered Ireland.

The water from the reservoir below is pumped up around the structure to cascade down the bowls that protrude from the structure like bracket fungus bringing the piece to life and feeding the surrounding garden.