Soil

Soil, the fourth project in the series ‘Marking the Land’, was an installation held in an old machinery shed at Ballyhaise Agricultural College, County Cavan, 1996.

Soil was gathered from every county in Ireland, north and south, 6 tons in all. 4,500 miles were travelled, 160 sacks of soil, 5 sacks from per county dug, filled and brought to Ballyhaise. The soil came from farms, motorway developments, building sites, urban gardens, private and public spaces.

The installation consisted of soil heaps interspersed with sculptural elements, a sound pieces and video. A modified version of the installation was later shown in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Hall in 1997 and in The Rockefeller Foundation, Villa Serbelloni, Ballagio, Italy in 2002.