Boundary Event

Boundary Event

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The Anthropocene or Human Epoch has been proposed as a term to describe the current geologic period defined by the impact of humanity on the natural environment. In the title Boundary Event, Ó Dubhghaill refers to Donna J Haraway’s writing – her hope that the Anthropocene is a boundary event rather than an Epoch, and the possibility that we could make it as short a period as possible followed by a time of global recovery.

Silversmiths usually purchase precious metals as pristine manufactured sheet, bar, and wire with limited understanding or oversight of the destructive mining and global supply chains involved. This piece combines silver with iron, celebrating an alternate and more local form of material production – Irish bog iron smelted in a bloomery furnace. This bloom was smelted on a sunny day with blue skies in the Burren in County Clare, with bog ore from Offaly, charcoal from coppiced Wicklow Sweet Chestnut, in a furnace built from Monaghan clay.

 

Materials: silver, bloomery iron.

 

Measurements: approx. 25 x 17cm.

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Artist Bio

Cóilín Ó Dubhghaill is a silversmith producing work that explores vessel forms through a study of process, materials and colour. Cóilín trained at Grennan Mill craft school and Edinburgh College of Art, graduating in 1996. He subsequently worked as a designer for industry in India, the Philippines, and the UK, and set up a workshop in Kilkenny, Ireland.

In 1998, he moved to Tokyo, to study in the metalwork department at the National University of Fine Arts and Music (Tokyo Geidai), receiving a doctorate in 2005.

From 2007-2019, Cóilín worked as a Senior Research Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University. He currently lectures in the School of Design at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.

He exhibits his work internationally and has pieces in collections including the National Museum of Ireland, the Goldsmiths’ Collection, London, and the Marzee collection, Netherlands.

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