PASSAGE (2026)
Siobhan McDonald
Installation view: The Lab, Dublin, 2026
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Siobhan McDonald’s multifaceted exhibition Passage explores Dublin’s deep history as a mutable landscape shaped by water, cosmology, and human intervention.  This deep material exploration through geological time, reveals the wetland as a place of erosion and growth, collapse and resilience. These threshold spaces of transformation move through liminal zones of submerged landscapes, where land and water continuously reshape one another. The work calls to mind ancient myths surrounding the rivers and seas as well their raw and fragile beauty.  Through film, sound, painting, and sculpture, Passage explores how the city’s shifting ground holds memory and resilience. Some of the works use the language of sound to connect with the histories and inaudible forces within our waterways that vibrate with non-human songs beyond our hearing range, bringing to life the invisible layers that carry the energies of our coastal zones.

Sound inscription score (2026)
6 metre drawing on antique paper,
Siobhan McDonald
Installation view: The Lab, Dublin, 2026
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

McDonald’s engagement with this subject began a decade ago when she encountered the Faddan More Psalter, a 10th century book of Psalms, which was discovered in a Tipperary bog in 2006. Dating from the early Christian period, this stunningly preserved manuscript containing 150 Hebrew songs and poems and survived in a wetland for 1300 years. The anaerobic environment preserved sections of the book while leaving voids untouched by time.  The presence of Egyptian papyrus in its binding provides the first tangible evidence of trade facilitated by boats between Ireland and the broader world, thus linking Irish waterways to the Mediterranean. It highlights the historical significance of Irish ports as gateways of cultural and economic exchange. McDonald was intrigued by the idea of the papyrus used in the psalter coming into Ireland on a boat and the idea of the sea serving as a gateway to the outer world that allowed this kind of material exchange.

Core (2026)
350 million year old Irish limestone deposited in a shallow marine setting
Sculpted plank of wood and limestone
160 × 23 cm
Siobhan McDonald
Installation view: The Lab, Dublin, 2026
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

In 2024 McDonald was awarded the prestigious international S+T+ARTS 4WATER II project, a programme that focuses on the environmental challenges of ports, port cities, coastal areas and waterways.  She was awarded a nine-month residency based in Dublin port and began with a wider focus on the historical interconnectedness of ports. The artist’s enduring fascination with the papyrus that arrived in Ireland on a vessel and lined the Faddan More psalter prompted a further period of research on the role of the wetlands in its preservation of the psalter. This marked a further evolution of her thoughtful exploration of water and ecology, an intrinsic part of her practice for many years. The artworks in this exhibition are for the most part, from this residency or created since its completion. This time in Dublin port has provided McDonald with several rich strands of exploration as attested by the visually compelling works in this exhibition.

Film doc 4

Short documentary

(4 mins)

The film Passage (2026) lies at the heart of the exhibition and is the work from which the exhibition takes its title. The choice of the word ‘Passage’ is apposite as it allows for a multi-layered interpretation, particularly in an Irish context, because as an island nation, passage in and out of Ireland through sea journeys were an intrinsic part of our history. Yet the word also evokes archaeological undertones such as passage tombs, the burial tombs of the neolithic era or the ritual deposition of burning boats in bronze age Ireland. The sense of uncovering something buried is fitting in the context of the nature of McDonald’s art.

Floating Body
Biennale des Arts et de l’Océan, curated by TBA21 at Villa Arson, Nice (2025)
A slice of non-human time was filmed at the National Museum of Ireland in 2025, where 19th-century fish specimens from Dublin’s wetlands, preserved in formaldehyde, are suspended as markers of arrested movement and memory. Through these interwoven sites, the project traces memory, transformation, and more-than-human histories.
Installation view: The Lab, Dublin, 2026
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Floating Body
Biennale des Arts et de l’Océan, curated by TBA21 at Villa Arson, Nice (2025)
Installation view: The Lab, Dublin, 2026
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Historically, before the construction of the North and South Bull Walls, Dublin port was known as being a dangerous port due to its exposed nature and it is estimated that at least fifteen hundred shipwrecks took place in the approach to Dublin port.  One such shipwreck in the heart of Dublin port, is the subject of McDonald’s film. Within the history of the deep-water port, the wreck aligns with the era of the great water basin’s creation. The Port’s photographic archives reveal the boat already lying as a wreck 100 years ago, unmistakably the same vessel in the precise location – its origins still unknown.  Once discovered by underwater archaeologists, it is imperative that the shipwreck is recorded before it degrades.  The artist documented the race against time and tide to capture and recover the vulnerable, exposed remains before they succumb to the air and decay. A sense of impermanence is not only the thematic content in the film but also the form of the vessel is beautifully recorded. Its timbers exposed to the elements are strangely evocative of the spine and ribs of a whale’s carcass imbuing it with a poignant sense of loss.   Passage can be understood as tracing that represents loss. The changing tidal shifts make this obsolete and long-forgotten vessel both visible and invisible again.  The filming and recording of the final boat burial is staged for the wreck to bury itself with the sand and a membrane covers the carcass before it is submerged in the sediment and soil.

Passage (2026)
6:40
Film still
Poem: The Parchment Boat — Moya Cannon Voice: Markéta Irglová
Filmmaker: Kilian Waters
Sound Engineer: Sturla Mio Þórisson
Photo Siobhan McDonald, Dublin Port

The exhibition also includes ‘Shroud’, part of the actual cloth that wrapped the exterior of the shipwreck to act as a protective shield and was rubbed with graphite to create a portable trace of the contours of the vessel. The cloth was then left on site, where it absorbed further impressions of the surrounding environment, including plants, moisture, and soil. Through this process, the cloth becomes a remnant of the site—a movable trace carrying its material and ecological memory. The traced outline of the wreck emerges from the cloth like a ghostly palimpsest that is suggestive of a new form taking shape and marking another passage across time. The cloth – although a modern material – takes on the form of a quasi-relic and the title ‘Shroud’ is very fitting in this context.

Passage (2026)
6:40
Film still
Poem: The Parchment Boat — Moya Cannon
Music: Sigor Ros
Voice: Markéta Irglová
Filmmaker: Kilian Waters
Sound Engineer: Sturla Mio Þórisson
Photo Siobhan McDonald, Dublin Port

‘Seabones’, a series of exquisite paintings by McDonald, also feature in this exhibition. These paintings incorporate tar, limestone, sediment and crushed shells, locally sourced from the coastline region and evoke the once-flourishing wetlands of the port that covered the region for over 300 years. Materials and forms in oil paint are evocative of environmental processes that shape landscapes in transition.  These places exist in endless flux, attuned to tidal rhythms. A further series, entitled ‘River’ are delicate works on paper that the artist dyed with seawater and natural materials from the seabed. Plants such as marsh samphire, twigs, and roots have been enmeshed in drawings, together with satellite images. The ‘River’ series speaks of the fragility of existence and the interconnectedness of cities, coasts and edges of land to the ocean and ultimately to the cosmos.

Voyage (2025)
Oil paintings on Canvas
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

McDonald’s series The Last Page, Psalm 150 explores the final surviving letters of the Faddan More Psalter manuscript preserved in wetland conditions for 1,300 years. The paradox of presence and absence is central to the work: the iron gall ink in the Psalter acted as a preservative, allowing individual letters to survive, suspended in the organic material. Material traces of fragments in the artwork speak as much to the passage of time as the surviving text itself, highlighting the delicate balance of nature and memory. The Faddan More Psalter is the source of inspiration for a new and unique artistic collaboration with the renowned Irish composer Mel Mercier, the first soundings from which may be heard on 19 February at The Lab Gallery.

By deftly weaving together soundscapes, imagery, and in-depth environmental research, McDonald offers a meditation on time and memory.  This hauntingly beautiful body of new work offers a compelling and timely reminder that the boundaries between solid and fluid, human and elemental, are always in motion.

Margarita Cappock: writer and curator

Siobhán McDonald

January 2026

Serpent (2026)
Fabriano paper 285 gsm, tar scrapped of the boat, Soils, silts, ink, iron filings, time.
Photo: Ros Kavanagh
Delicate drawings on water colour paper that has been dyed with seawater and natural materials from the seabed. Plants such as marsh samphire, twigs, and roots are enmeshed in drawings, together with satellite images. The ‘River’ series speaks of the fragility of existence and the interconnectedness of cities, coasts and edges of land to the ocean and ultimately to the cosmos.

Seabones (2025)
Oil on board
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

“LUNGS” Lungs | Inhale, Exhale (2025)
12 cm × 10 cm each
Porous layers of calcium carbonate and sea sponge
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

To Breathe a Forest (2024)
Materials: Peat, moss, sediment, charcoal, roots on delicate layers of Japanese paper.
Composed of painting and drawings using various techniques Chine Collé and frottage. The mixed media artwork, printed on delicate Japanese paper, responds to the different stages of the life cycle of the common pine tree and its merging into the soil of a wetland. It expresses the slow changes and communication of forest elements such as trees with other life forms.
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Star seeds (2022)
Seeds, mushroom ink, methane on German etching
A series of works on paper that explores ideas of what will manage to live in the ruins we have made. Consisting of both drawing and lithographic prints, they bear the direct imprint of plant fragments collected from bog sites, what used to be living organisms, which over time have become gaseous. The drawings aim to convey the light and dark histories from which they emerge — recounting stories of life and decay — from remedy/medicine to the poisoning of an ecosystem.
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

19th Century cabinet, collage on archival glass plates (Dublin Port), soil, bronze shavings
A root looking for the sun
Roots, peat and quartz
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Atoms (2026)
Metal weighing scales, dust and soil
Photo: Ros Kavanagh

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PASSAGE runs at The LAB Gallery until 23 February. The presentation at The LAB marks the culmination of a major series of international exhibitions and events by Siobhán McDonald, including: Biennale des Arts et de l’Océan, curated by TBA21, Nice (2025); United Nations Ocean Conference, Villa Arson, Nice (2025); RHA, Dublin (2025); James Joyce Summer School, Trieste (2025); Art Basel, Paris (2025); and Dublin Port (2025).

A medieval manuscript discovered in a bog in Tipperary twenty years ago forms the point of departure for a new artistic collaboration between Siobhán McDonald and composer Mel Mercier. The first soundings from this project will be shared in words and music at a public event on 19 February at 6pm at The LAB. The event will feature Siobhán McDonald, Mel Mercier, and John Gillis (Conservator of the Faddan More Psalter), in conversation moderated by Margarita Cappock.

The evening will also include a short performance of a new work by Mel Mercier, performed with singers Caoimhe Ní Fhlatharta and Fiona Kelleher, and musicians Kelly Boyle and Kevin McNally.

Credits:  Margarita Cappock, curator

A number of works in the exhibition are commissioned within the framework of the  S+T+ARTS 4Water II residency programme by ADAPT Centre at Dublin City University  and Beta Festival with the support of Dublin Port Company, Dublin City Council,  Smart Dublin, Waterways Ireland, the Irish Maritime Development Office and the  S+T+ARTS programme of the European Union.

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Siobhán McDonald Homepage

All images copyright and courtesy of Siobhan McDonald

You can watch the trailer of PASSAGE here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6yojdGDW-U&t=86s

Art, Creativity, Installation, Science, Water