About the Event

In May 2019 The Republic of Ireland and the UK Parliament declared a climate and biodiversity emergency with calls to action.  

On Saturday 6th November 2021, the artist Miranda Whall crawled with a six year old Scots Pine tree on her back through the centre of the City of Glasgow to the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 26), hosted by the UK, 31 October – 13 November 2021. 

“My hope is that crawling to the COP26 United Nations climate change conference carrying a tree, that is equal in size to my body, might inspire human beings to re- think and re- align their relationship to trees, seeing them not only as a resource to use and abuse but as an ally and a vital source of knowledge. Animals, plants, trees, air, earth and oceans should be, metaphorically, sitting at the discussion table with heads of government and delegates.”

Over the last year, The Carlow Art Collection and Whall worked together to create a unique artwork for the permanent collection. Crossed Paths – Scots Pine, Glasgow COP26 by Miranda Whall enters the The Carlow Art Collection as a sequence of twenty-nine intimate photographs sourced from her extensive documentation. Whall wears multiple body-cameras to capture new points of view and sound-scapes in the city from her crawling position; she describes herself as a human-vegetal-digital hybrid. We also drew from third-party documentation; wide angle film taken by Tim Sandy and the livestream footage for social media taken on a phone by Kate Rolt.

The final selection of photographs are grouped to represent the variety of photographic formats used to capture the artist’s determined and silent procession with Scots Pine, through heavy rain and high winds, moving from Glasgow Sculpture Studios on Dawson Road, through the City Centre with its Saturday shoppers, seers and ubiquitous police presence, to the COP26 Green Zone in the Science Centre on the Clyde Waterfront Regeneration area. 

“I believe that we all literally need to get down from our human centric, two – legged, dominant and hierarchical position and start recognising our non-human vegetal others as equals, and as sentient beings with a voice – that we crucially need to listen to if we are to find a way out of our human made catastrophe.”

The Carlow Art Collection worked with Whall to document, archive, and present her live art and this brave, tragic/comic art activism, firstly to invite engagement with the richness of the artist’s imagery and street photography, and secondly, to reflect on potentials to translate personal and collective grief, despair and outrage into response to the climate emergency and ecological crisis.

The Carlow Art Collection is delighted to add two Scots Pine trees to the collection with Crossed Paths – Scots Pine, Glasgow COP26; one planted in the front garden of Carlow College, and the tree Whall crawled planted in Aberystwyth University, Wales.

Whall’s film will also be screened at the presentation in Carlow College on February 10th and thereafter on our website.

Set up in 1992, The Carlow Art Collection is a voluntary community initiative that has been surrounded by goodwill and generosity from the people of Carlow. It has expanded into a diverse collection of work with artists from around the world. The CAC became a fully registered charity in 2018. The home of our collection is in Carlow College. The gardens and orchards of the college have many trees and heritage trees; they act as the lungs of Carlow Town. The Carlow Art Collection is free to view in the front halls of Carlow College, Monday to Friday, and in the garden every day of the year. 

Curated by Rosalind Murray and Art O’Neill Mooney, 2023.

CARLOW ART COLLECTION

Charitable Status Number (RCN) i20163969

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