Flesh of the World presents a conversation of materials discarded, obsolete and undervalued, revealing itself as a ritual gathering of elementals. Locally-sourced sheep wool and intestines is contrasted with hand-harvested hazelwood and reclaimed copper pipes – once prized for their material properties and utilised accordingly, these materials are now effectively worthless. Wool costs more to salvage than sell, intestines are used as filler in animal food, remnant building materials are cast aside and abandoned, and in the Burren, hazel encroachment is considered problematic. Through slow and tender acts of care, I transform these materials from the quotidian to the curious, the forsaken to the flaunted, presenting them as something other than what they are, or what we know them to be. In so doing, I call for their reappraisal - enkindling renewed wonderment of, and correlation with the elemental world.

Flesh of the World is an invitation to touch and be touched, a gesture of intimacy, and a lure back to the elusive present moment. It serves to reacquaint us with materials of the land and of the body, celebrating these lapsed wonders of the earth, yet simultaneously invoking their revival.