​​​​​Sculpture in the Parklands

​2002-2010

Raised Line

2002

Lough Boora International Sculpture Symposium 2002

work in progress

Photographs: James Fraher

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.

Maurice MacDonagh’s Raised Line is closer to being a minimalist sculpture akin to the works of the 1960s sculptors such as   than any nature integration. As a time line, or horizon line, or elongated bucket for harvested peat, this piece alludes to the container, containment, the artificial and the natural, and contrasts are created along the length of this track. One hundred metres of galvanized steel, this is a raised line alright, a kind of linear material drawing that contrasts the horizon line of the land surface behind, which was the height of the original bog railway and first harvests. So there is a sense of time and of history, and this sculpture stands outside it all, a kind of measurement, albeit aesthetic.

John Grande  Art/Nature Dialogues