Cosmic gas

Centre for Contemporary Art LAZNIA 2022

Cosmic Gas (2021) is a drawing and lithography series that fuses materials devised from poisonous invisible methane gas and explores ideas of what manages to live in the ruins we have made. The project examines delicate ecologies and co-existence between the lungs of the earth, humans and plants as the permafrost melts and slowly releases toxic gases into our air.

**Cosmic Gas**, Image by Siobhān McDonald, Cosmic Gas, 2021. Plant fragments, arctic water, mycelium and ink on Japanese paper

The works have a living and dark presence made from the direct imprints of plant fragments collected from bog sites that used to be living organisms and have eventually became gaseous. The work is rooted in the medieval mythology of boglands as a cultural preserver offering an insight into ancient pagan times. The strange landscape of boglands with many rare geographical features and occurrences explains for the large mythology surrounding it. Tim Robinson, a celebrated writer and cartographer remarked of an Irish bog “Mind is being reabsorbed into matter; humanity’s imposition of languages, order, meaning, is being sucked down and choked off by nature.” Maybe it is this mysterious timelessness that placed the bogs as reminders that we are not mortal. That we are made of the same material.

This project is realized by Siobhan McDonald. With thanks to the Joint Research Centre, Soil Action, JRC-ISPRA. Commissioned by GLUON with the support of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, within the framework of STUDIOTOPIA, JRC-ISPRA, Arts Council Ireland, The Model and Creative Ireland. ©️ Siobhan McDonald