Join artist Fiona McDonald in conversation with RHA Interim Director Nathalie Weadick to discuss McDonald’s current exhibition Inhale Exhale: Ecologies that Refuse to Behave at the RHA.
Artist Fiona McDonald adapts climate-science tools to reveal how restored peatland ecosystems can transition from warming the climate to helping cool it.
McDonald’s work creates an interface between the slow, often imperceptible changes occurring in the natural world and the technological systems in an artistic context. Working with hardware, sensors and code as artistic materials, her installations translate hidden environmental processes into forms that can be experienced by viewers.
The works in Inhale Exhale: Ecologies that Refuse to Behave draw on atmospheric data gathered during a three-year restoration project at All Saints, a cutaway bog in County Offaly. Adapting measurement tools used in climate science, the artworks make subtle atmospheric changes readable, revealing how scientists determine whether an ecosystem has an overall cooling or warming effect on the climate.
Through this iterative practice, technology becomes both a medium and a method for exploring the complex behaviour of restored peatland ecosystems.
As an artist with a background in Chemistry Fine art and Multimedia systems her work has always been at the nexus of Art Science. Her practice frequently involves setting up systems with a degree of autonomy, allowing environmental inputs to influence how the work evolves.
The talk will also explore how generative approaches were also evident in her earlier works including electro etching prints, see here, and how the traces of enclosed chambers employed in scientific experiments were evident across her practice, going back to her Fine Art Degree show from NCAD which was exhibited in the basement of the RHA Gallery in 1996.
Images:
01. Fiona Mc Donald, Inhale Exhale [1.1] (fluxing PPM), Real-time custom JavaScript data-driven algorithmic drawing, spatial sound composition 2025. This work responds to low resolution low bandwidth data from an Eddy Covariance Flux Tower on a restored bog at All Saints Bog, Co.Offaly. The work visualises the “breathing” of the bog, Photo credit : Mark Stedman, Image courtesy of the artist.
02. Fiona Mc Donald, Bund Walkers / Cloud Chamber, 2026, Video Still, 4K film, audio, 86-inch display, speakers, Film Still credit : Lynda Devenny, Image courtesy of the artist.
03. Fiona Mc Donald, Bund Walkers / Cloud Chamber, Floating Chamber, Video Still, (868MHz Transmitter), Electronics, custom software, LoRa radio (868MHz), acrylic enclosure, linear actuator, CO2 sensor, circulation fans, 14-segment display, living sphagnum moss, Film Still credit : Lynda Devenny, Image courtesy of the artist.
