A sculptural re-mapping of sacred and ritual geologies.
Maguire’s work examines the ritual and magical possibilities of minerals as deeply embedded alternatives to the comparatively recent regard for minerals as purely extractable commodity. Red stain oozes out of the cave walls and dries. This substance, Ochre, a ferrous rock, when ground into a powder and mixed with water, saliva, or urine, creates an impressive substance for use on the body or other surfaces. The relationship with minerals began possibly 300,000 years ago. Some of the ochres shimmered as mica or pyrite may have been present. People travelled far and wide, trading the potent minerals for ritual, magic, and storytelling purposes. The material had meaning and was valued. ‘Ochre altered our relationship with the earth. The dead rock underfoot yielded something miraculous, something striking and powerful, something that with conscious intervention could be transformed, and then used itself for transformative effect.’ 1 Under a Metal Sky by Philp Marsden
‘Material Acts’ condenses some of Maguire’s research into minerals, mapping and mining and the relationship to rocks over the centuries. In 1824, Ireland was the first country in the world to be mapped by the British Ordnance Survey; the mapping of Ireland was developed to facilitate taxation and evaluate the Underground Potential; of geological and material reserves. Mapping was done by triangulation, by creating a series of primary triangles. Sightings were taken between stations using theodolites and light (often moonlight) on specific Mountains. Maguire has used real artefacts from the field, such as surveyors’ tripods, Gunters Chains and geological drill core boxes that once housed drill cores of riverine deep strata.
Material Acts is derived from the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), which was implemented across parts of the world starting in 2019. Each country is to compile a list of minerals and assess the mineral potential of its territory. ‘The EU’s demand for Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) such as lithium, copper and cobalt is set to increase exponentially, as the EU transitions to clean energy systems which require the building up of EU production of batteries, solar panels, permanent magnets and other green technologies.’ 2
Maguire’s works explore contemporary practices of mapping and modelling using real geodata and 3D printing and mould-making. As Ireland transitions to a global green economy, Maguire questions what the rare-earth and critical minerals look like in real terms.
In his book A Geology of Media, Jussi Parikka suggests that we try to think of media not from Marshall McLuhan’s point of view – in which media are extensions of human senses – but rather as an extension of Earth. Media technologies should be understood in context of a geological process, from the creation and the transformation processes, to the movement of natural elements from which media are built. Reflecting upon media and technology as geological processes enables us to consider the profound depletion of non-renewable resources required to drive the technologies of the present moment. Each object in the extended network of an AI system, from network routers to batteries to microphones, is built using elements that required billions of years to be produced. Looking from the perspective of deep time, we are extracting Earth’s history to serve a split second of technological time, in order to build devices than are often designed to be used for no more than a few years. The unique electronic, optical and magnetic characteristics of rare earth elements cannot be matched by any other metals or synthetic substitutes discovered to date. While they are called ‘rare earth metals’, some are relatively abundant in the Earth’s crust, but extraction is costly and highly polluting. David Abraham describes the mining of dysprosium and Terbium used in a variety of high-tech devices in Jianxi, China. He writes, “Only 0.2 percent of the mined clay contains the valuable rare earth elements. This means that 99.8 percent of earth removed in rare earth mining is discarded as waste called “tailings” that are dumped back into the hills and streams,” creating new pollutants like ammonium. 3
Maguire’s ‘geophilia’ (love of rocks) has led her on a journey of lithic conversations with wonderful geologists across the globe, as well as with fellow artists who share similar, deep-time thinking and concerns with extraction and reparation.
‘We are lithic bodies performing rocks.’ (the artist)
‘We are part mineral beings too – our teeth are reefs, our bones are stones – and there is geology of the body as
well as the land. It is mineralization – the ability to convert calcium into bone – that allows us to walk upright,
to be vertebrate, to fashion the skulls that shield our brains.’ 4
This, and the artist’s question, ‘Do Mountains commune with us?’ has informed the fabrication
of the works on show, which draw on geoscience, mapping, mineralogy, and sculptural
history. Maguire’s urgent, long-running questioning and researching of the sacredness of minerals,
engages transformative interpretations; this exhibition can be viewed as a research station
along the way.
2 https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-climate-energy-and-the-environment/press-releases/critical-raw-
materials-act-enters-into-force/
3 https://anatomyof.ai/#ai-ref-31-bottom
4 Underland by Robert Macfarlane.
Kathryn Maguire’s geologic work included in her exhibition To the Mountain (2024), should have been included
in the ecoartspace book The New Geologic Epoch (2024). Unfortunately, we were not aware of her, nor she of
us, when the call went out in early 2023. Once we connected, an invitation to interview with the artist was made
and posted on our blog, Mining for Fossils and a Better Future: Kathryn Maguire’s Geological Sculptures Voice
People and The Land (October 2024). We were also excited to highlight Maguire’s work in our most recent
book, Soils Turn (2025), where her hanging textile pieces with printed electron micrographs captured an
world embedded in soil samples of London Clay (gathered near the Tideway Tunnel super sewer in the River
Thames), revealing heavy metals. For an artist to dedicate their work to making visible the cultural, ecological,
and material transformations of mountains—how they break down and become soil due to erosion, mining, and
extreme weather, combined with dead plants and animals—is a practice of the long view, seeing the bigger
picture, and creating a consciousness outside our daily lives.
Patricia Watts, ecoartspace, founder/curator
Kathryn Maguire works in Sligo and London. She holds a Masters in Sculpture from Royal College of Art. A BA in Fine Art Sculpture from CCAD and MA in Art in the Contemporary World from NCAD. Her practice engages text, sculpture, video, and installation; making diverse cultural references linking the past with the contemporary. Exploring geology, the history of materials, building materials, and the circular economy. Her practice concentrates on lithics, minerals, mining, and knowing place from the mantle up. Maguire is examining rocks and minerals and fossils in various international locations. She has attempted to create new rocks and bricks on her residencies and to understand the experience of complexities of deep time visible in building materials.
She engages questions arising in the Greek Philosophers and an understanding of materials as means to both artistic production and revealing of laws in the Physical World. Using performance as ‘survey/workshop/lab’ a connection between artist and scientist is explored; creating and presenting demonstrative elements in the gallery and the field. Often an expert is involved, a source of knowledge rooted in real scientific phenomena. Attempts to reveal fundamental and invisible forces and energies, explored by scientists and experts alike, is central to Maguire’s practice. New works have used scientific technology to reveal the micron worlds that we inhabit and we host.
Residencies include: Culture Kings Artist in Residence, Kings College, London, 2023. Interface Science & Art International Residency; Pasajist Studios, Istanbul & Leitrim Scupture Centre, Leitrim, 2023. GroundWork residency in The Grange Projects, Norfolk, UK 2022. The London Metallomics Group, The Magnetism Group, Artist in Residence (R&D), CRANN, Trinity College Dublin, 2020. Rathfarnham Educate Together National School, Artist in Residence 2019-2020. Fish Factory, East Iceland, funded by Arts Council/DLR Council, 2019. Sim House, Reykjavik, Iceland, 2018/2014.
Awards: Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary 2025. The Model Studio Award residency 2025. Sligo County Council Bursary 2025. Kings Culture Artist in Residence in Kings College 2022/23. Arts Council Artist in the Community R&D Award with mentoring by Vaari Claffey 2022. Spatial Structures Artist Mentoring with Workhouse Callan 2022. .Arts Council Agility Award, 2021. Arts Council Travel & Training Award 2019. DLR CoCo Creative Bursary 2019. DLR Co Co Artists Bursary 2016. Arts Council Artist in the Community Award 2016. Firestation Studios Sculpture Bursary Award 2016. Artists Tax Exemption 2011.
Selected Exhibitions: Material Acts in Pallas Projects, 2025. Clifden Arts Festival 16-Sunday 24 September 2023. Silt & Other Matters, Inigo Rooms, Somerset House, London, 2023. Groundwork Gallery, Kings Lynn, Norfolk. 2022. Wild Stone, Van Gogh House London, 2022. RCA Masters Degree show, Battersea, London. 2022. Earthly Bodies, Angel, London 2022. Impressions, Safehouse 1&2, London, 2021. Social Commons, Liberty Hall, Dublin, 2019; Social Fabric, Liberty Hall, Dublin, 2018. Nasty Women, Pallas Projects, 2017. We Claim (banner & chapbook), Eden Quay, 2016 /2017. Terra Incognita, Platform Arts, Belfast, 2016. The Balloon, Rawson Projects, New York, 2014. Interactivos12?, Science Gallery, Dublin, 2012. Dublin Contemporary 2011. Notes of Protest, Wyspa Institute of Art, Poland, 2010. No Soul For Sale, Tate Modern, London, 2010 & Dia Centre, New York, 2009. Video Killed the Radio Star, RHA, Dublin, 2010.
Public Artworks (Temporary and Permanent): ‘The Mourning Band’, Swords, Dublin 2023 (permanent). ‘We Claim’ banner on Abbey Theatre building Eden Quay 2017. US Again and The Exchange, floating artworks on Grand Canal 2013.
Memberships: Interface Inagh, Artlink at Fort Dunree, Visual Artists Ireland. a.n . Geological Association. Stone Club. Sligo Field Club. Irish Geological Association membership.
‘Desire is’ was purchased by OPW for permanent exhibition, OPW HQ, Merrion Square.
* Interview and details of Icelandic Residency
http://inhere.is/2019/11/kathryn-maguire/?fbclid=IwAR1nuOIk32_iS-1XhqH_fItwe18AMeCHfl_dPQJpxhVsE2G0MkE3L95SAaI