Creative Spark in Dundalk's latest Artist in Residence

Niamh Seana Meehan is a visual artist based in Co Armagh, her work is across written matter, visual art, and performance.

She describes it as: “Performative activities function as sites where the body gets lost, misunderstood, exhausted and anxious. The accumulation and overlapping of ideas within the practice has resulted in working towards event-based happenings.

“Ephemerality currently explores embodied feelings between place and the body.” Spending the last five years sea swimming, Niamh is currently developing a floating methodology.

Above: Niamh Seana Meehan

She says: “My practice is often theory driven. However, instead of presenting existing theories, I try to demonstrate through temporal gestures the process of layered thinking and embodied knowledge.

“For my residency at Creative Spark, I am currently exploring two locations Templetown beach and Port Oriel. As a regular swimmer at Templetown, I have been recording the tide times, through text and listening activities.

“Port Oriel is a fishing pier located near Clogherhead. Spending my weekends trying to spot grey seals as they are residents of Port Oriel. Going back and forth between both locations I have become increasingly aware of the weather conditions.

“I started researching seal behaviour in relation to weather predictions. Referencing folklore and fishermen stories about seals, I discovered that fishermen could tell weather conditions from the behaviour of the seals the previous day.

“In-between this research I visited Bere Island, there I learnt from retired fishermen that they could predict weather conditions from the tide.

“Currently I am trying to interweave these fragmented bits of narrative towards an outcome for my residency.

“To anchor this research, I have been reading; The People of the Sea by David Thomson, The Edge of the Sea by Rachel Carson, When Species Meet: 03 (Posthumanities), Donna J. Haraway and The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (Tera Ignota), Ursula Le Guin.”