The Ancestors

Place of restful peace.

ReRoot is a hybrid soundwalk performance created by composer and sound artist Robert Coleman and dance artist Laura Sarah Dowdall for Barnaslingan Wood. It explores the interaction of sound and touch to re-connect with the forest and our bodies and brings our relationship with the natural world into question. This experience seeks to deepen and help renew our relationship with nature and in doing so, allows us to challenge the existing conditions which have brought us into this climate and biodiversity crisis. Using a variety of recording techniques around the forest including contact microphones (microphones which sense audio vibrations through solid objects) and geophones (microphones which sense seismic waves in the earth) Robert has recorded sounds typically inaudible to the human ear opening us up to a new perspective on the living world around us. This listening is deeply rooted in our tactile connection with the eco-system of the Woods, complemented by Laura’s practice in dance, spoken word and somatic sensing, we will explore the moments when touch becomes sound, and sound becomes touch. ReRoot is part of Nature and Place, an initiative of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council Arts Office. It is supported by Coillte and the Dublin Mountains Partnership. Meeting Point: Barnaslingan Wood Car Park Please bring headphones and a smartphone. Parts of this walk will feature audio hosted on the Echoes app which you will need to download. Full information and links will be sent to you in advance of the event. Technical assistance will be available on-site before the beginning of the walk. Please get in touch if you do not have access to headphones and a smartphone. Please arrive 15 minutes before the event start time. This is to ensure Echoes app and headphones is working correctly for all participants. The walk is completely outdoors, and the route involves crossing uneven ground and so please wear appropriate footwear and clothing. Please note that ReRoot is not suitable for small children or anyone who is mobility impaired. This experience will include aspects of audience participation The duration of the walk will be approximately 75 minutes. Booking is essential for all participants. As places are limited, please only reserve a ticket if you will be present for the event. Tickets are free.

*This work is located at the Pinewood Underpass, Ballybrack. This area has moving vehicles. Please be mindful of your surroundings. * *** ### About the work #### ARTIST: Niamh McNally Line Work' by Niamh McNally was commissioned by Translink as part of the opening of York Street Station in 2024. Originally sited at York Street Underpass in Belfast, this work is now geolocated at Pinewood Underpass in Ballybrack, linking two infrastructure-led urban edge sites. Underpasses keep traffic flowing but are often overlooked. Line Work reframes them as shared public space. The “line” suggests a route, boundary, or trace of repeated journeys. Both sites are shaped by post-war planning and commuter patterns. Moving the work connects places with a common urban experience. Part of SLEEPERTOWN, this mobile public art project invites a brief pause and attention to the everyday spaces we pass through. *** *At all times, please take care and be aware of your surroundings while listening to walks and using the app. You are responsible for your own Health & Safety. [Please read further Health & Safety information for SLEEPERTOWN here:](https://www.sleepertown.com/health-and-safety)*

*This work is located in Kilbogget Park. This works starts about half way up the Kill o'the Grange Stream at the bridge. Enter the back lane to activate the walk. * *** ### About the work #### ARTIST: JOSEPH YOUNG The island of Ireland has been subject to many climatic events over the centuries and the idea of ​​the storm has particular resonance for our post-pandemic era. The basis for this work comes from binaural recordings made in the aftermath of Storm Brendan on the Killruddery estate in County Wicklow. The text you hear comes from a poem by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1536) after witnessing the beheading of Anne Boleyn, the reverberations of which resonated throughout the kingdom. Now, as we consider a very different world unfolding in the future, the stillness of Kilbogget Park offers us a space in which to consider the echoes of what came before and what is yet to come… *** *At all times, please take care and be aware of your surroundings while listening to walks and using the app. You are responsible for your own Health & Safety. [Please read further Health & Safety information for SLEEPERTOWN here:](https://www.sleepertown.com/health-and-safety)*

*This work is located at the Kill-o'-the-Grange stream in Kilbogget Park. This are has mixed terrain including concrete, grass, and water. Please be mindful of your surroundings. * *** ### About the work #### ARTIST: Janine Eisenächer. A composition of field recordings realised on the Kenyan coast around the town of Kilifi. The area is located very close to the equator, at the Indian Ocean. All sounds were collected between 2019 and 2021 while Jastrubczak was working as curator on the “Duos Festival” - a project of cooperation between Polish and Kenyan artists, and realised with the support of the “Transcultural Perspectives in Art and Art Education” research grant. The artist wishes to mix this composition, that represents the complex sonic ecosystem of Kilifi Creek, with the complex ecosystem of Lübbenau/ Spreewald. *** *At all times, please take care and be aware of your surroundings while listening to walks and using the app. You are responsible for your own Health & Safety. [Please read further Health & Safety information for SLEEPERTOWN here:](https://www.sleepertown.com/health-and-safety)*

The History of Killiney Hill - Digital Media Midterm Asssignment Learn all about the history of Killiney hill and it's surrounding monuments and structures as you progress through this walk.

*This work is located in the green area of O'Rourke Park. This area has uneven ground, please be aware of your footing. * *** ### About the work #### ARTIST: DANI GILL “Sulfur Feathers” features the voices of over 20 women. It layers sounds collected in Berlin while on residency at Hošek Contemporary, with a written piece about naming places, lost things and watching for weather. From the sky come unexpected objects. They dissolve and elude their watchers. As weather comes and goes, compass points become obsolete and stars disappear. A chorus of women speak of place, ancestors and the missing. *** *At all times, please take care and be aware of your surroundings while listening to walks and using the app. You are responsible for your own Health & Safety. [Please read further Health & Safety information for SLEEPERTOWN here:](https://www.sleepertown.com/health-and-safety)*

Some 23 years ago the world lost my friend to an act of extreme violence in a tree lined lane in a leafy suburb. We were 17 years old. I found myself standing at the edge of that lane for the first time in 23 years. Signs of spring were abound and the sun was patterning the path in flickers of dappled warm yellow. I document plants everywhere I go and my eyes scanned from the far outskirts. As my brain tried to work out how it felt and my heart beat faster, I wondered if the plants knew her or whether they were fresh and unmarked by catastrophic traumas. I walked by instinct up the path with my camera and started to film each living thing. After a time I sat under the old tree and stroked the moss around its roots. The tree knew. The tree had always been there. Did it bear marks or were its budding leaves and flaking bark the signs of the cycles of newness. Something felt stuck in the breeze. A weight still lived there. Yellow dandelions bobbed their heavy heads and I saw the luminous yellow guards stooped low scanning the grass for clues. The last time I saw this tree there was a big white tent and somewhere in it was a person. The wind seemed to huddle around this one spot as if trapped flapping at a tarp that no longer existed. I didn’t know how to articulate any of this since it all happened, even all these years on. I did not want the story to be attached to the person, further erasing the young woman she was and replacing her with a cautionary tale told to daughters. A statistic in an ongoing legacy of misogyny and femicide. She existed in unknown mouths as an object anchored to some passing story of horror expected to repeat itself with new names every now and again. She was more than this. I returned a week later to the lane to plant bluebells(1). I offer a plant without a script so that she can be let go as she pleases. Fig01.Hyacinthoides non-scripta (Bluebell). When botanists first saw bluebells and tried to find a name, they knew they was related to the Hyacinth but they did not bear the tell-tale mark. In mythology, Hyacinthus was loved by both Apollo and Zephyrus. Zephyrus saw Apollo and Hyacinthus together and in a rage struck Hyacinthus dead. Apollo then commanded Hyacinth flowers to spring from the blood of Hyacinthus and ensured that forever more the plant would be branded with the mark Al. In this act Hyacinthus is claimed by Apollo and forever tied to the story of their death, eternally marked by the trauma enacted upon them. When the Bluebell was discovered to be without this mark, it was named Hyacinthoides non-scripta, or the Hyacinth which has not been written on. The bulbs do not retain the stories of the past, they are blank fresh white paper.