by Maria Markam
Ráth, which means ringfort in Irish, represents a time past. This work explores landscape and memory, tapping into history, archeology and a past that still resonates. My process often includes extensive research. In this work, I looked into the history, locations and layouts of rath across Ireland. An astonishing number of rath dot the country embedded in the landscape’s memory. One estimate considers 60,000 in a past somewhere between 500 to 1000 AD. As a multifunctional communal space, a rath enclosed various activities including commercial, residential and artisanal.
Ráth is a work on sumi paper. The process features a photo transfer of an Irish landscape with stitching of a diagram of a rath, an ogham notation and other markings. Thread functions metaphorically as linkages of time and the conjunctions of human and beyond human. Stitching is important because it references the work of women and Ireland’s long history with fibre.
Thread functions metaphorically as linkages of time and the conjunctions of human and beyond human.
In my practice, stitching is also an embodiment of mending. I am also thinking about what it means to work with the landscape in postcolonial times. These threads allow me to abstract a different story.
Maria Markam
Maria Markham is an Irish artist who lives in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S. Her artistic practice is amplified by over 30 years work in the nonprofit sector with diverse groups and communities in the U.S. and internationally . She is recently completed an MFA in Art Practice at the School for Visual Arts (SVA) in New York.
Anecdotes Issue 01
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