On March 13th 2020, I travelled with my family from my home in Dublin to spend the weekend in rural County Carlow, in the house in which my grandparents once lived. Things changed – lockdown began, and this weekend ended up lasting 109 days.

Living in the restricted space of lockdown led to a slowing down of time as my attention turned away from the forward-looking pressure to be productive towards the real-life landscape of my surroundings. Traversing the collage-like patchwork of farmland every day on foot, I found myself quietly observing and documenting this place; noticing the hawthorn give way to elderflower and spring to summer, wondering where the ever-present buzzards were nesting, picking wild strawberries, waking up to the inexplicable death of a cock pheasant, counting the broods of house martins fledging from the eaves, rescuing hedgehogs fallen beneath the cattle grid and admiring a dying weeping willow in the last years of its life.

These images were always made with the impulse to record and are bound up with my own immediate observation of space over time. As a whole they represent this place; the localised circle of land I inhabited during lockdown.

Cian Mali

Cian Malin is a final-year Drama and History of Art student at Trinity College Dublin. His involvement in the arts is cross-disciplinary, encompassing academic and practical experience in visual art, architecture, theatre and music. Recently, he has been involved in a number of shows in the Samuel Beckett Theatre, TCD, as part of the Debut Festival. He performed in ‘Van Gogh’s Sunflowers’ by Charles Mee and ‘Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.’ by Alice Birch, and worked as a deviser and performer on ‘The Epiphany of Eileen O’Keefe’ (Samuel Beckett Theatre, Whale Theatre, and Electric Picnic). In February 2020 he co-devised ‘Supermoon’ with fellow student Martha Knight, composing and performing the show’s musical score. His background in History of Art and experience as a musician inform his theatre practice. He is also a member of the TCD College Gallery Art Hire Scheme.