The Dock is delighted to announce the artists selected for the Farm Walks programme in Leitrim and Fermanagh. The artists are Christine Mackey, Jackie Maguire and Alison Hunter, Anna McGurn, Steph Saidha, Dr. Helen Sharp, and Grace Weir. On her farm in Dromahair, farmer Dolores Byrne will be joined by artist Grace Weir to undertake an action-research residency.
About the artist
Grace Weir is an artist whose work ranges from film and video to photographic, painting, installation or web projects and lecture-performances. One particular area of Weir’s work is her unique approach to research, based on encounters with specifics such as certain objects, particular locations, source archives or from conversations with philosophers, scientists and practitioners from other disciplines. She had made over thirty films and video works, underpinned by the particular locations, entities and theories under her scrutiny, whether cultural, scientific, or philosophical.
She has a particular interest in the way we construct and experience time and space, and the corresponding relationship to our concepts of identity. Her work often challenges dominant systems of thought, questioning how thinking is materialised and how time and history are experienced and represented. She is especially interested in the ways film and other media can unsettle fixed narratives and identities, often using structural cinematic techniques and experimental forms to explore the slippages between conceptual knowledge and lived experience.
About the farmer
Dolores Byrne is a Leitrim-based farmer with over 45 years’ experience. She co-manages the family farm with her brother, a property that has been in their family for over a century. Farming is a part-time role for Dolores, as she also teaches ecology at ATU Sligo, using the farm as a learning lab.
Biodiversity is a priority. The farm supports a thriving population of the protected marsh fritillary butterfly. The woodlands are left untouched, fostering deadwood habitats and supporting rare plants like the bird’s nest orchid. The area is also home to red squirrels, pine martens, foxes, and diverse bird species. Japanese knotweed, an invasive species, is controlled using glyphosate.
Dolores has played a role in developing results-based biodiversity payment schemes for farmers where the farm served as a testing ground for scoring systems now used in ACRES, a national conservation programme.
About Farm Walks
The Farm Walks project (est. 2023) was co-created by Leitrim County Council Arts Office and The Dock, in partnership with The Leitrim Sustainable Agriculture Group and the Ulster Wildlife Farmers’ Group in Fermanagh, funded through the Creative Ireland Shared Island Programme. Through the project, the partners aim to build cross-border cooperation, to explore the common ground between artists and farmers, and to highlight shared farming and environmental interests.