POST_
Artist
Deirdre O’Mahony
When
Launched on 9th November 2020
Sound recording
John Brennan
Voiceover
Jack Healy
Supported by
- Galway 2020
- Saolta Arts
- Saolta University Health Care Group
- The Arts Council
As we better understand the benefits of nature to mental wellbeing, POST_ allows everybody to take an aural road trip to the West of Ireland and visit places and practices that cannot physically be experienced, whether through hospital admission or within wider communities.
Deirdre O’Mahony
Saolta Arts and Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture presents POST_ as part of The Deepest Shade of Green.
POST_ is a specially commissioned online audio-based artwork by Deirdre O’Mahony. The artist and Sound Recordist John Brennan travelled to locations served by the Saolta University Health Care Group over an 18 month period, capturing the unique sounds of people and place. These recordings and a scripted voiceover were then woven together to evoke life on land and sea, taking listeners on an aural road trip through the Western region. Passing farm, coast, bog, mountain, home, churches and holy wells, it explores the healing power of being in nature and the connection between place and practice.
The work takes its name from a rural post office that O’Mahony reopened as a public art project and social exchange in 2007. Its seven chapters are inspired by objects found in the ex-post office that serve as prompts to immerse the listener in sounds of a year’s turning. Starting with PRELUDE, which tells the story of the post office, six chapters navigate life on the land and sites associated with the health of the spirit, ending with the slow awakening of an ancient Oak woodland at dawn, during the deep silence of lockdown. POST_ allows everybody to visit places and practices that cannot physically be experienced, whether in hospital or out in the wider public.
The audio artwork launches on 9 November 2020 accompanied by an exhibition of photographs across Saolta’s seven hospitals, documenting the artist’s process.
Listen to all seven chapters here (duration 1:03:44).
PRELUDE tells the story of a rural post office, a postmaster, and some of the objects and stories found in the building when it reopened as a social and cultural space.
FARM looks to the land and the relationship between farming, landscape, animal care and daily life of the farm.
COAST travels from Downpatrick Head over and under the sea, back upstream finally ending with the sound of rolling pebbles on a shingle beach.
BOG moves from the sound of the lark to the strangely melodic, uncanny sound of windmills and back to the wind and water of the peatlands of the West of Ireland.
MOUNTAIN brings sounds of the high places – hazel woods creaking on hills, the rescue helicopter, the wild weather and the peace and quiet of Derryclare.
HOME speaks to family life, leisure and culture in rural Ireland – gardening, fishing, dancing, the agricultural show, and GAA finals.
WELL recalls sites of solace for the spirit – church bells, holy wells and the dawn chorus in an ancient Oak woodland.
