Wild Earth

This exhibition runs from 28 March 2027. For more about our launch event on Friday, 27 March, see here.

How do poetry, storytelling and language offer a way to connect – or reconnect – with nature? In Wild Earth, we explore this question by immersing ourselves in over ninety texts by Irish writers, dating from the sixth century to the present day. The varied representation of nature in Irish literature testifies to the rich biodiversity of this island and its capacity to inspire authors across the centuries. From the shapeshifting of Amergin to the incantatory power of Paula Meehan’s field work, the texts in this exhibit – voiced by Zara Devlin, Roxanna Nic Liam and Lux Lovett – engage with nature in ways that honour the specifics of experience, yet transcend them to echo long after their moment of time.

Human memory is deeply embedded in place and shaped by the energies of the natural world. Oscar Wilde’s recognition of the primeval power of the sea and its classical connotations presents quite a contrast to the precise textures of Jane Clarke’s meadow, with its nest of corncrake eggs. Yet both texts demonstrate the capacity of language to interrogate our relationship with the more-than-human world and to give apt shape to its extraordinary diversity. With their imaginative range and originality of expression, the writers in Wild Earthoffer a kind of enchantment, making even what is familiar seem strange and new. Solitude in nature has long been associated with revelation and self-understanding; here, quiet contemplation of word and image may open us to new forms of discovery. 

Our close emotional ties to nature mean that joy and grief combine as we reflect on its beauty and recognise the implications of its loss. From the sublime landscape to the microscopic organism, all of nature forms a single web of life, rendered imaginatively here in the many voices that create a single ecological response. As Patrick Kavanagh realised, paying close attention to nature is an act of love – we recognise what is other, and allow ourselves to be transformed by the encounter. Wild Earth demonstrates the myriad ways that nature shapes our experiences, our memories and our traditions. Each observed detail tells us something new about the whole world.

Curated by Nathalie Lamprecht & Benedict Schlepper-Connolly