Nature Squared
In artistic practice, framing is a very important device, focusing attention and elevating the significance of that which is captured within the frame. Frames are used in science too. A quadrat is a square frame that can be placed on site to delineate a small area to survey (i.e. to investigate the abundance of plants and/or animals in a habitat).
Artists Cleary and Connolly propose, with their project, Nature Squared, to take this simple device and use it as an artistic framing device to make art with communities along the Dodder River.
"The artistic possibilities of the quadrat in a natural site are endless" says artist Anne Cleary, "ranging from macro photography, drawing, video, poetry…. the important thing is that the quadrat frames and focuses our attention on the beauty of nature, unleashing the imagination to make art."
The artists hope to demonstrate the important role of art - and particularly art made and shared by citizens - in raising awareness and mobilising public response to the many problems of our environment, nurturing both scientific curiosity and artistic creativity to support and spark positive climate action in the unique and very special context of the Dodder linear park.
Anne and Denis propose to work with numerous communities along the River Dodder and expect multiple artistic outputs to emerge, leading to an exhibition to take place in late 2026 or early 2027.
Artist Biographies
Anne Cleary and Denis Connolly are a husband and wife team of visual artists, winners of the AIB award in 2009, and have been making art as the collaborative practice Cleary and Connolly for nearly thirty years.
Following studies in architecture in the 1980’s Anne and Denis moved to Paris and set up the collaborative arts practice Cleary and Connolly together, first exploring interactive digital arts as a means to create engaging new media art accessible to a wide range of publics. Their work evolved to address visual perception as an essential component of the human relationship with art and life. In recent years they have focused principally on ecological arts practice through the Eco Showboat project.
They live and work between Ireland and France, and in 2018 co-founded of the School of Looking, a collaborative arts organisation based in Dublin, with the aim of mobilising the arts to awaken society to the urgency of the climate crisis and the threat it poses to the natural world.