THE HUT

The Hut is a living willow structure installed in the community garden of Mud Island, North Strand, Dublin 3. This film documents the making of the hut, the community of growers who were involved in its making, hand drawn stop frame animation as well as a collage of archival animated and live action footage. The voice over is a series of original poems read by poet Otilia Galca who wrote them in response to the sculpture series. 
This installation is part of a series of sculptural works. The Hut is the largest of the sculptures which is inspired by French Philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s book “The Poetics of Space” which examines nests and shells as safe places: ‘an empty shell, like an empty nest, invites day-dreams of refuge.’ This woven willow hut is modelled on the structure of a mollusc but also is reminiscent of early forms of human shelters; a beehive hut or a crannóg and it’s construction aims to reconnect our habitats back to nature. The willow harvested from Newgrange was woven into a human-size liveable nest and will be added to later in the year with living willow fronds allowing for the piece to continue to grow into a permanent living installation. As the structure is currently absent of the living branches, it has been wrapped in yarn until the Spring when the new sprigs will take over creating a natural canopy in place of the wool.

The film documents the making of the hut, the community of growers who were involved in it’s making as a collage of archival animated and live action footage.