ᖃᐅᔨᒪᔭᐅᔪᓐᓃᖅᑐᑦ / OBLIVION  /  SEACHMALLTACHT by Aideen Barry was an aurora borealis of music and art that started on winter solstice 21.12.21.

OBLIVION is a work built in response to the endeavours of Edward Bunting to save the Irish Harp from extinction. It also merges two indigenous musical entities to create a new and never before heard sound of Inuit Throat Singing by Riit Music, Irish Harp by Aisling Lyons and electronica beats to make a dark anthem full of gothic tropes and haunting call to arms from the desperate depths, asking:

What is the role of Art & Artists at a time of uncertainty, environmental collapse and the prospect of a world of ruin if we do nothing at all?

Tropical Popical were part of creating the nails for this project. Kate O’Brien worked with Aideen to figure out how the Inuit & Gaeilge language and some of the Balors Eye motifs could be incorporated into really long nails. Long nails are usually associated with contemporary fashion and artists like Cardi B and Lil Nas X, but actually Irish harpists would grow their nails extremely long to pluck the strings of Irish harps of old, so this project merges the historical with the contemporary as a way of reclaiming our indigenous heritage and making something that is relevant to contemporary popular culture of our time too.

Irish milliner Margaret O’Connor created crowns made of eel skins which is a material noted in UCD folk archives as having healing properties especially treating poisonous injury. The crowns feature Balor Eye motifs. The use of the poisoned eye motif is a comment on our own use of knowledge and ambition that blinds us to our own poisoning of our land and world around us.

Comissioned by Irish Traditional Music Archive and Music Network Ireland for the Bunting Commission Award.