Maria Markham

Ráth, ringfort in Irish, explores landscape and memory, tapping into history, archeology, and a past that still resonates. An astonishing number of ráth dot the Irish countryside embedded in the landscape’s memory. One estimate considers 60,000 in a past somewhere between 500 to 1000 AD. The ráth was a multifunctional communal space enclosing various activities including commerce, residential, and artisanal activities.

Ráth is a work on sumi paper. The process features a photo transfer of an Irish landscape with stitching of a diagram of a ráth, an ogham notation, and other markings. Thread functions metaphorically as linkages of time and the conjunctions of human and beyond human. Stitching references the work of women and Ireland’s long history with fibre. Stitching is also an embodiment of mending and these threads allow me to abstract a different story for landscape in postcolonial times.

The Ties That Bind II is about emigration and immigration. The images in this photo collage blend two images from my own e/immigration. I shot the base image from Pier 57 in New York City, one of my favourite places there. The image transposed over New York’s Harbour are trees from the lane near where I grew up in Greystones, Ireland. Tree roots reach deep and have a complex network of connection through mycorrhiza or fungal roots. This complex symbiosis provides a metaphor for our own human relations that spread invisibly as we migrate to distant places. Even though we are scattered, we remain connected by many threads to our own roots.

Threads of Place derives from a body of work about my Irish history and heritage. The landscape is a photo from a hike in Waterford and roots the work in place and home. The process of transferring the print to sumi paper reflects a distancing from my past and history; a new set of eyes trained on the past to understand how it informs the present. The threads and stitching act metaphorically. The thread reminds us of our connections to our culture and home and in a macro sense to everything else. The stitching acts as a practice of repair. If we can effect reparations in the present, how might this address or remedy past wounds or errors?

The Ties That Bind II is about emigration and immigration. The images in this photo collage blend two images from my own e/immigration. I shot the base image from Pier 57 in New York City, one of my favourite places there. The image transposed over New York’s Harbour are trees from the lane near where I grew up in Greystones, Ireland. Tree roots reach deep and have a complex network of connection through mycorrhiza or fungal roots. This complex symbiosis provides a metaphor for our own human relations that spread invisibly as we migrate to distant places. Even though we are scattered, we remain connected by many threads to our own roots.