Material Memory
Exploring the body’s relationship with place
Material has memory, I remembered this when I went back to the land I came from.
This project is a documentation of a project gone wrong. A project that intended to explore a divided land and in turn uncovered a divided self. Shaping and using these ceramic tools has helped me begin to mould myself back together, to discover a new found feeling of wholeness.
As I travelled to Belfast, intending to explore the complex trauma of my ancestral home, my own repressed memories began to surface. In the same way that this land didn’t want to be touched or overpowered, neither did my body. We were and are connected. Reconvening with my ancestral home brought a long-buried truth to the surface and gave my wounds a chance to begin healing.
Clay foraged in my maternal and paternal ancestral lands of Ireland and Northern Ireland was used to create these ceramic instruments. In the process of making these tools and using them, they have become instruments for personal processing and grieving. And a way of celebrating the land my cells feel most connected to. When therapy has fallen short, their sound heals, vibration heals, hands in the dirt heals, time heals.
These instruments are my way of honouring place and our body’s innate relationship to land. They remind me that being ripped from our connection to the earth can often create a void in us that ends up perpetuating cycles of pain and suffering. Their intention is to strengthen our connection to earth, self, and subsequently each other.
Ashlin Dolan
ashlindolanstudio@gmail.com
ashlindolanstudio.com