The Great Heap

Dustsceawung
From dūst (“dust”) + sċēawung (“inspection, contemplation”)

Contemplation of what has been lost & the transience of things
(Old English: 'consideration of the dust')

Dust can be categorised as everything/anything which is out of place. It is not only temporary, it is also the most temporised form of matter, it is an allegory of time, shifting, yet unshiftable. The dust of this Planet is omnipresent and infinite, a presence of something which alludes to absence, a substance whose origin breeds through entropy, a material which we are unable to control.

The Great Heap represents the outputs of foraged waste collected from the LSC factory floors; crushed limestone, glass, and dust. The exhibitions title is in reference to a watercolour painting by E.H Dixon of the Great Dust Heap in London which depicts the innovative Victorian prowess of recycling dust from ash and cinders to make the London brick. Much like the architectural movement of Bricolage in the 70’s, where the Bricoleur rebuilds using the debris of previous events, Kelly has foraged and utilized remnants from which to construct a fable for the present. By employing the wealth of abandoned materials, she assembles concrete building blocks of repurposed waste.

Printmaking also plays an important role within the exhibition and the artist’s creative process. Being the first medium in which information was reproduced and disseminated, Kelly uses the medium of screenprinting alongside traditional etching and aquatints to narrate the spread of stagnating manmade topographies and the disregard of the natural.

Exhibition curated by Séan O'Reilly.