Luke Casserly's Distillation artwork at IMMA
Through the support of the Arts Council, Luke is collaborating with the UCD Earth Institute as a research partner for a new project called Distillation. Part lecture, part performance, the project is a ambitious attempt to look at our human relationship to landscape through scent. As an artist from the midlands, Luke was inspired to make the piece in response to the recent cessation of the peat harvesting industry, as a way of stretching out further conversations around the environmental potential of the Irish bog landscape. Luke has been collaborating with renowned perfume maker Joan Woods over the past few months to create a unique distillation of the Irish bog, the starting point for an olfactory performance which attempts to translate the landscape for a live audience in an intimate and inventive way.
Luke will be sharing a small sample of the work as part of the IMMA Earth Rising Festival, in association with the Goethe Institut in late October at the following dates and times:
Location: Studio 13, IMMA
Dates: 22 & 23 October
Time: 15.00 & 16.00
Duration: 30 mins
More details on the performance can be found at https://www.goethe.de/ins/ie/e
Also featuring in the IMMA Earth Rising Festival are Institute member Sophie von Maltzan (Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy), Institute artist-in-residence Mark Clare and artist Rosie O'Reilly who has worked closely with a number of Institute members.
Biography: Luke Casserly is a performance maker originally from Co. Longford. His work weaves together environmental research, documentary, sound art, and site as a way of stretching out new conversations around our human impact on the environment. To date, his work has brought audiences through city streets, back gardens, train stations, a beach, and a bog in the Irish midlands. Most recently he collaborated with Shanna May Breen to create Root for Dublin Theatre Festival (2021), a performative inquiry looking at the importance of trees in our ecosystem – from the point of view of a tree, sparked by the fact that Ireland has the lowest tree cover in the EU. A micro forest of 1000 indigenous Irish trees was planted in the midlands as part of the environmental legacy of the project. Luke holds a BA in Drama and Theatre Studies from Trinity College, and is currently Associate Director of Pan Pan Theatre.
