Restoring Ancestral Connections to Celtic Cultural Lifeways :
Land, Water, Sky

When we work through the ethical principles and processes of ‘decolonising the mind’, our use of imperialist language is redressed, shifting our understanding of the natural world, and a poetic language of cultural reclamation has the opportunity to emerge through decolonising creative practice. 

For more than thirty years, my art practice has explored cultural memory, its residues and movements across generations, and its aesthetic influences on the ways we perceive, shape and engage in the world around us. The cultural memories of my Ancestors are tangibly passed on in the Lands, Waters and Skies of Ireland, and are culturally embedded through the regeneration of origin stories of Ancestors Past. As a Gaelic person born on the Traditional Lands of Australia's First Peoples, and with familial ties to the First Nation of the Quandamooka People in southeast Queensland, I’ve learned that it is in the deep layers of the Lands, Waters and Skies that memories are saved, and stories passed on, and that these stories are intrinsically rooted in the deep and ancient relationships we form with the natural world. 

The migrant’s story, of which I share, whilst unwittingly contributing to the colonisation and desecration of another Country’s peoples and culture, is also the story of loss and grief; of losing the critical cultural memories and stories of our own Lands, Waters and Skies, and of grieving the disconnection from our Ancestors and our Natural World. 

As an ethical decolonisation and eco-cultural reclamation practice, I have committed to reconnecting with my Ancestors and their stories - stories drawn from the Lands, Waters and Skies and passed on by a Celtic Peoples who revered the Natural World as a Cosmology in and of itself.

This long-term commitment, which is also a decolonising practice, entails returning to the natural places of my Ancestors, to reclaim the ancient stories of my own culture, and through the poetic language of creative practice, pass these stories to Future Ancestors, so that they will not be forgotten.