three artists explore the more-than-human beneath poulaphuca reservoir, wicklow, 2021-22
In Ireland, ancient myths and modern machines coalesce, manifesting a unique myth-ecology, a narrative bridge spanning the past’s spiritual fervor and the present’s technological vigor.
At the heart of this interplay lies the Púca, a renowned shape-shifting trickster from Celtic folklore. This creature was believed to bring both fortune and chaos to those it encountered.
Meet a púca:
Hydrofeminism
With the advent of technology, our global waterscape is undergoing dramatic shifts, challenging the age-old boundaries between land, sea, and sky. In response, the academic and ecological world has introduced the concept of “hydrofeminism,” emphasizing water’s transformative, life-giving attributes, and asserting its place as a fluid connector and not a divider.
Another relevant artwork is MUD & FLOOD – the Return of Nehalennia, in the Netherlands (2022) also an invitation about boundaries (between mud and flood), hydrofeminism and the use of a local myth.
I also found other hydrofeminis work around polluted water basins in Canada, or centered around the very polluted Baltic Sea. I am intrigued by these ideas and will explore them more, especially if here is a local (eco)mythology hook. P
Boundaries
Like water, the Púca too doesn’t adhere to boundaries and rigid forms. This trickster crosses realms and forms, much like water seeping into every crevice, morphing to fit the vessel that holds it..
However, can we truly say we’ve contained the Púca when we attempt to harness water’s power through technology? in 2023, many flooding events, from Norway to Guatemala, demonstrated the power of water, and… perhaps the illusion of control of water?
Or, like the unpredictable trickster, does water, in its myriad forms, always find a way to escape, redefine, and reimagine its existence? Perhaps, in our dams, pipelines, and machines, is it the water or the Púca that we’re trying to tame?
Ireland’s techno-scape, with its pipelines and wires and infrastructures, could be seen as the Púca’s modern playground. The trickster revels in the boundaries we attempt to impose, only to fluidly redefine them.
Hydrofeminists using local myths for coping with the social and psychological effects of unrooting
In the 1930s, many people were evicted from their homes in Poulaphuca in Ireland. As one of the artists, Shane Finan reminded us, in that time people started to investigate and publish about the effects of uprooting people en masse. In the 1970s-1980s, social geographers began to recognise also the impacts. As some people know, I have a bachelor n (social) geography, so I learned about the role of place and space and moving and rooting, uprooting and rerooting in the past 18 years. Also, we know the effects of flooding a valley on the more than human world too.
In 2022, these three artists started to collaborate and produced various artworks. They have walked often along the lake shore. Earlier, I wrote already how digging and working with local myth and folklore is an ecofeminist act. It is about re-rooting, or at least providing some framework to work with the grief on this loss (es).
This happened in the 1930s, but there is more evidence such events and the impacts are carried to the next generations (cfr. intergenerational trauma). Please let me know if you use local myth in your artistic or community or other practices to create brave spaces for (intergenerational) traumas of uprooting.
For more information:
Another relevant artwork is the Return of Nehalennia, in the Netherlands (2022) also an invitation about boundaries (between mud and flood), hydrofeminism and the use of a local myth.
- https://mu.nl/en/txt/mud-flood-the-return-of-nehalennia-2022
- https://nonhuman-nonsense.com/mud-flood
This artwork reminds me to the Dutch mythic eco-fiction book “Zee Nu” by Eva Meijer, which is also about boundaries, trickery, the illusion of water control, and has also a role for Nehalennia.
Do you know other examples? Please let me know in the comments. Or do you want to write a reflection or a guest blog on this intersection of hydrofeminism and local (eco)mythology, send me an email.
Other references to hydrofeminism, but less related with (eco)mythology)
Hydrofeminism in Canada: Neimanis, A., 2022. Toxic Erotics and Bad Ecosex at Windermere Basin. Environmental Humanities, 14(3), pp.699-717.
Hydrofeminism around the Baltic and the North Sea: Åsberg, C. and Radomska, M., 2020. Environmental Violence and Postnatural Oceans: Low-Trophic Theory in the Registers of Feminist Posthumanities. In Violence, Gender and Affect: Interpersonal, Institutional and Ideological Practices (pp. 265-285). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
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