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.
Fiona McDonald’s practice sits at the intersection of art ecology and technology, often working with environmental sensing systems and field-based research to explore relationships between human and non-human systems.
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, low-power technology becomes both a medium and a method for exploring the complex behaviour of restored peatland ecosystems.The work also draws from the embodied routines of environmental measurement observed during site visits, translating gestures of calibration and care into choreography.
McDonald’s practice often involves setting up semi-autonomous systems, allowing environmental inputs to shape how each work evolves over time. The talk will explore the processes and ways of thinking that inform McDonald’s artistic practice, including her use of generative approaches—evident both in the dynamic algorithmic drawings in the current exhibition and in earlier works such as her electro-etching prints see here. It will also trace the recurring presence of chamber-like structures drawn from scientific experimentation, a motif that has been evident across her practice since her Fine Art degree show at NCAD, first 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.
