​​​​​Sculpture in the Parklands

​2002-2010

Sculpture in the Parklands, Lough Boora Discovery park

Raised Line

2002

Lough Boora International Sculpture Symposium 2002

work in progress

Photographs: James Fraher

Sculpture in the Parklands, Lough Boora Discovery park

Maurice MacDonagh (Ireland)

Harvested peat has inherent limitations as a material for Land Art. It is so vulnerable to erosion as to be unstable, yet it is the core substance of Lough Boora. This led me to the idea of containment- to create a container for the harvested peat within a form that derives from, and is relevant to, the landscape of Lough Boora. Everything about Boora is essentially horizontal in form: the peat works, machine paths, rails, roads, even the waterways are linear and it is to this I refer with the form of my piece- a 100 metre long galvanised steel container to be filled with harvested peat. At just over a metre high it will stand as a line in the landscape, in the same way that old peat beds have left lines over the years.