Microforest III | Spring 2022

In spring 2022 the Microforest project focused on teaching students how to create and develop a habitat for insects and birds. Over the course of six sessions from March to April 2022 students of Blakestown Community College participated in a series of activities led by artists Gareth Kennedy, Eileen Hutton and Michael Fortune to develop a new ecosystem in the Microforest on the grounds of their school.

Seanchaí Microforest is a micro forest on the grounds of Blakestown Community School created by Gareth Kennedy and the members of the transition year art class along with their teacher Mary Quinn.

The programme started with artist Gareth Kennedy introducing the new transition year students to the Microforest, explaining how it works and how to tend to it. Together they planted new trees and discussed how to create an ecosystem. The following week they visited the National Museum of Ireland and looked at samples, learned about Irish insects and birds and ffamiliarize themselves with the different types of bird nests.

Under the guidance of artists Gareth Kennedy and Eileen Hutton students built insect hotels - also known as bug hotels or insect houses, to provide shelter for insects and a feeding ground for birds, encouraging and attracting them to the area. They also built bird boxes to provide a safe place for birds to build their nests in, protected from the natural elements and predators as well as offering shelter from the cold air during the winter months. With the help of artists Eileen Hutton, students made botanical or natural pigment inks as an eco-friendly, sustainable and non toxic alternative to regular paint to colour their bird boxes before installing them in the trees near the Microforest.⁠

The programme continued with a drawing session where students captured their selected native birds using ink and feathers as drawing media. They then welcomed artist and folklorist Michael Fortune to the Microforest to learn about bird songs and folklore. Students recorded bird songs and stories relating to their assigned bird which they played on our PA system the following week to introduce the school to bird calls from a diverse Irish woodland and conclude the programme.

Participating Artists:

  • Gareth Kennedy / Lead Artist

  • Eileen Hutton / Artist

  • Michael Fortune / Artist 

Gareth Kennedy is a visual artist whose work explores the social agency of the handcrafted in the 21st century and generates 'communities of interest' around the production and performance of experimental material cultures. Informed by an anthropological approach these works draw on the layered histories of a location. His projects are embedded, evolve over time, and enacted by diverse publics and individuals. His practice to date includes public art commissions, workshops, education projects, exhibitions, residencies and collaborations. In 2009, he co-represented Ireland at the 53rd Venice Biennale alongside artist Sarah Browne and their collaborative practice, Kennedy Browne. In 2015 he was long listed for the prestigious VISIBLE Award for Die Unbequeme Wissenschaft (‘The Uncomfortable Science’). He is currently undertaking commissions for the National Children's Hospital and Fingal County Council in Dublin. He teaches Sculpture and Expanded Practice and is lead on the Studio+ FIELD module at NCAD, Dublin which explores experimental and experiential pedagogies in response to a derelict brownfield site beside the college.

Eileen Hutton’s practice aims to generate a reciprocal relationship with the natural environment. Specifically, she is interested in the critical role that honeybees and birds play within ecosystems and have built various artificial habitats in order to support them and surrounding biodiversity. Within the nesting boxes and beehives, she then creates sculptures in collaboration with these priority species. She sees this practice crossing the boundaries between ecological and artistic intervention, creating new ways of understanding the relationship between humans, animal species and the natural environment. Her practice involves traditional artistic methods such as small-scale construction, installation, fibre techniques, photography, and community-based workshops. Her process also involves scientifically appropriated methods such as the collection, microscopic analysis and museological display of various organic and inorganic specimens.

Michael Fortune completed his BA in Fine Art, specialising in video and performance at Limerick School of Art and Design and his MA in Film and Screenwriting at Dún Laoghaire School of Film. Working predominantly in film and photography, much of his practice revolves around the collection of material. Much of Fortune’s work borrows from the popular conventions of film, home video, snap photography and the printed media and his work can be seen as growing out of a tradition of social documentary and anthropological film. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and bursaries for his work, which he presents extensively nationally and internationally. He is a regular visitor to the Folklore Department in University College Cork and his collections are housed in numerous universities and libraries in North America and Europe.

Thank you to Mary Quinn, teacher at Blakestown Community School and our partners and supporters for the project, Fingal County Council Arts Office, Blakestown Community School and The Arts Council Ireland. Video by Arcade Film.