James Winnett
Affiliation: Independent Artist
Artist James Winnett has developed a number of public art projects across the UK and Ireland through a practice that explores the crossovers between sculpture, archaeology, social memory and storytelling.
Each body of work involves multiple carved stones that are positioned across a landscape. The stones function as networks of curious artefacts that sit in relation to their archaeological, social and mythological context. In this way they weave a tale through the place in which they reside and offer a touchstone between the world of the present and an otherworldly place somewhere between human and more than human spheres.
https://www.instagram.com/james.t.winnett
This public art project by artist James Winnett involves 18 intricately carved stones that can be found at Kerdiffstown Park, a former landfill site in County Kildare, Ireland. The stones carry a mythic narrative which draws on Irish mythology, the folklore of the surrounding landscape and the recent history of the landfill.
The stones are encountered as curious artefacts, aged with algae and partially fragmented. The story within the carvings revolves around two characters named Brigid and Fionn. Brigid references traditions connected to both Brigid the goddess of pre-Christian Ireland and Saint Brigid, while the character of Fionn draws on the stories of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, the great warrior of Irish mythology.
Rising from the centre of the park is the 'Hollow Hill’, an artificial earthwork containing three million tonnes of waste. The hill is re-imagined as a sídhe, a mysterious subterranean Otherworld that is home to a hoarding giant. A colossal fire which burnt beneath the hill for a month in 2011 is also referenced alongside broader themes around climate crisis and healing.
The story culminates at the summit of the hill where a solar alignment occurs at sunrise and sunset on 1st February (Imbolc/St Brigid's Day).
https://vimeo.com/1057131976
https://axisweb.org/artist/jameswinnett