the Burren Dye Garden

As part of a larger Ph.D. project researching how permaculture and systems thinking may affect the organisation of an artistic practice, I started the Burren Dye Garden in 2021 on campus at the Burren College of Art. The garden became the central work of my practice-based Ph.D., as material source for my art, but also as a space for gathering, connecting, and learning, with others. 

From the plants grown on this plot, I am able to synthesise pigments for use as dyes, inks, stains, and colouring agents for bio-materials. I have learned over the past five years how to care for these plants within the wider setting of the Burren ecosystem. Each year, I tested new plants in the garden, planted into beds made from recycled materials. I practiced no dig techniques to build soil health, minimal weeding, and seed saving. 

Originally intended as a garden meant to materially support an individual practice, the garden has become much more. It has now been integrated into the campus and community. It has become a space to teach students and members of the public how to grow and make with dye plants. Through open community days and meitheals, volunteers and interested people have helped me to shape and tend the garden. In return, I share materials and knowledge of how to grow and make with the dye plants. Graduate and undergraduate classes have also visited the garden. Lively discussions inevitably emerge from these encounters between the students and the system. Through touching the plants and entering into the garden space, they are able to get a feel for the momentum of growth and imagine new ways of making with nature.