Before humans there were no borders. “Everything is Connected” is a collection of minerals and pigments from around the world. The collection is grouped by location but arranged in a gradient of color so that Portugal, Ireland, Peru, The U.S.A, Spain and Japan become indistinguishable from one another. The boundaries disintegrate and you are left with a geological spectrum that is the earth; borderless as it was in the beginning of time. This collection was exhibited in Ireland in connection with Interface in the Inagh Valley.

Special thanks to: Alannah Robins, The O’Callaghan family, Mary Donnelly, and the Clifden Arts Festival

“19 DAYS” is a study in identity. For nineteen days during a depressive episode triggered by isolation and loss I recorded my physical and emotional state three times a day with a DNA extraction and corresponding mood log. After taking the DNA samples I would draw what would float up. The DNA will always remain the same, but our emotional state is changing moment to moment every day. Through this small effort in recording my DNA and mood I was able to spend time with myself in a different form and look in as an outsider, even if just for the duration of making the drawing. This project was developed at Cultivamos Cultura and exhibited in Ireland as a part of Interface. Both organizations offer opportunities to bring science and art together.

Special thanks to: Alannah Robins, The O’Callaghan family, Mary Donnelly, and the Clifden Arts Festival and when the project began, thank you to Marta de Menenzes, Luis Graca and Alan Tod

After a strong windstorm, a large branch fell to the ground outside of my studio. I had been thinking about how the collective memories stored in many cultures have been passed on or forgotten. This eraser may have largely contributed to the demise of the natural environment and the current climate crisis we face today. I decided to create a tomb for the tree using natural materials, and obsolete materials that have been forgotten about in storage so that maybe the memories of the tree could be passed on to the forest.

Within the studio tomb, I purified the air with spider plants, adorned the walls, branches, plants, and drawings of flowers with scarab beetles, and I wrote down the thoughts I had about destruction and greed in white ink on white paper.

The scarab beetle was a symbol in ancient Egypt that represented protection into the afterlife. The organs of an affluent deceased member of the community were removed and put into canopic jars except for the heart. The heart remained inside the body as it was believed to contain all of the memories and thoughts of the person inside of it. A scarab beetle amulet was then placed over the chest cavity in order to protect these memories and help guide the person through the afterlife.

*The sound piece was composed using recordings of moss and soil absorbing water, and the sound of snapping Japanese knotweed.

“A Conversation Piece” began with a deck of question cards I developed as a way to start a meaningful conversation. I decided to experiment with the setting and create a space that acted as a temple for the question cards. I invited five participants into the space at a time and instructed the group to choose a card to discuss. While the group conversed I climbed into the box, listened, and annotated the discussion.

I believe that meaningful conversation and active listening can connect us to one another in a deep and healing context. Sharing opinions in a ritualistic way can become a form of therapy. The act of listening and observing allowed me and the participants to understand and analyze our own differences and similarities, while delivering new perspectives about how these questions can be approached and answered. Five people entered more or less strangers, and left with a feeling of deep connection with one another and to the experience.

In the end, the shadows of the nights discussions appeared like ghosts on the walls of the space, transforming it into a memorial of connections created at that moment.

Photo documentation by : Anna Issak- Ross

Special thanks to: Marta de Menezes, Ateneu do Catorze , Ele Carpenter, Anna Isaak-Ross, and Alan Tod

“A Conversation Piece” is part of Project Arc-Hive, a digital platform documenting European bio-art practices. Arc-hive was born out of a collaboration between Cultivamos Cultura (PT) with KONTEJNER | bureau of contemporary art praxis (HR), Suomen biotaiteen seura ry foreningen for biokonst i Finland foundation (FI), Zavod za kulturo, umetnost In izobraževanje Kersnikova (SI), Hangar – Fundació Privada AAVC (ES) and RBINS – Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (BE

https://collections.arc-hive.zone/s/a-conversation-piece-eileen-ryan/page/homepage

Every natural space contains a geological signature or "finger print”. My intention is to continually represent each area I map with a unique mineral atlas and maintain this relationship with the earth and the work I create. The vials contain finely ground up mineral pigments I found and the swatches are made of handmade banana paper from the region I collected from with the minerals painted on using water.

San Roque de Cumbaza, Peru.

This project began in Japan, when I was observing bugs flying into light bulbs and windows at night. These moments reminded me of being in love, and the feeling of being drawn in by an unstoppable force. The insects would ignore all signs of danger around them as their fellow bugs perished, repeatedly flying full speed into a glass window.

I designed a screen that contained a ritual drawing I made during a performance in Japan. Behind the screen glowed a bright white fluorescent light that illuminated the drawing. As you get closer, you hear an audio loop of whispered compliments. The compliments were designed to lure you in and create the illusion of being put on a pedestal. While you listen to the compliments you are able to closely observe the drawing on the screen.

In my drawings, I reference the petri dish and bacterial cultures to make connections to things that grow unnoticed and start from microscopic to macroscopic growth. Petri dishes show groups of bacteria and fungus that are alike. They grow together in clusters and the stronger the sample the easier it is to tell what kind of group begins to form. Upon close examination the individual marks from the drawing are mosquitos— all together, growing in clusters, they create the shadows of the moon.

Special thanks to : Denise Manseau and Alexandra Derderian

This investigation began in Onishi, Japan. I was interested in creating a series of experiments that could help me visualize faith. The installation consisted of five parts; a collection of petri dishes in a wooden cabinet; a water purification unit; an observation cabinet containing found objects; a shrine dedicated to natural elements; and a desk containing observational drawings I made of mosquitos. The installation is inspired by two ideas; observation and ritual. Using scientific observation, I wanted to better understand what drives faith-based rituals. What I discovered is that in both science and religion there is both ritual and observation. The observations are about looking inward and outward at our world and how we affect it, while the rituals are what sustains these practices. 

The petri dishes were inoculated with air from inside the Shinto shrines where spirits are believed to inhabit. I used a variety of samples and found that the colonies reflected dark and light bacterial growth. The spirits in the Shinto religion are said to be good and bad like rain during a drought versus a typhoon, and humans contain these spirits within themselves. This is the same with bacteria. We have good bacteria in our bodies but when it moves or transforms, the bacteria can cause a lot of problems. It is important to maintain a balance of light and dark so one doesn’t take over the other. Although imbalance is inevitable at some point, rituals can help maintain a healthy relationship with balance. 

The water purification unit was inspired by the process of purification in the Shinto shrines. We see water as a purifier in many religions, but it is also the basis of creating sterile environments in the lab. The purification unit used water from the Onishi river, and sand and moss from the river banks. These natural elements echo the Shinto faith, while also creating a successful filter unit. The shrine parallel to the water purification unit brings attention to the forest, mountains, river, and wind. I found the most peace within these four elements during my stay there while hiking, swimming and walking through the town. For me, it was the closest I could imagine to experiencing the sublime.

The final two parts were about observation. I found a lot of treasures during the six weeks I was there and I displayed them in an old Japanese medicine cabinet. This cabinet served as a physical object of my observation. I would take daily walks and swims in the river, and I would try and sharpen my senses to my surroundings. By the end, I started to see things I never saw before. This observation became my ritual. It would keep me in the present, and give me a deeper sight. I began to observe the mosquitos in a way I hadn’t before. They would cluster around the light outside my studio and relentlessly fly into it. This reminded me of other forces that I was unable to stop, such as falling in love. No matter what the warnings, the draw ends up being too strong, and you fly into the light until you are burned. I would draw these clusters, and it became another ritual, serving as a meditation for me. 

During the final day of the exhibit, I did a performance of a ritual I had created based on the cumulative information I had gathered during my research.  The performance used found and made objects to create a large circular drawing in the space. Each part of the installation contributed and contained an important piece of my ritual. The marks were of the mosquitos, as I drew them the ink made dark colonies, and the negative white space made light colonies. The ritual was about what I had learned in Japan from my experiences and my experiments and helped me connect the parts of my self that need to see and want to believe. 

Special thanks to: Kjell Hahn, Manuel Shile, Sari, Taddaki Haichisu, Matthew Haichisu, Alyssia Mochizuki, and all of the residents at Shiro Oni Summer 2016.

For this project, I studied ant’s behavior in a nutrient agar gel in order to observe memory. The clear agar gel was designed by NASA in order to observe how ants built their homes in zero gravity. The agar is hard and provides a home to tunnel through as well as providing food for the ants.

My purpose for observing this insect group was to see how they functioned in three separate communities and to document the differences in structures and behaviors over a period of three months. What I discovered from reading was that the harvester ants leave pheromone trails to direct the colony, which means that the colony’s memory was collectively stored in the chemical pheromones that they released in order to guide one another. The ants were able to detect and return to these memories, and I was able to observe them in the form of tunnels and piles. 

At the end of the three months, the ant's life cycle had ended and each one of the colonies created pyres above the tunnels of the deceased ants. As their societies collapsed, the ‘funeral pyres’ grew in size.

I continued to observe the agar homes. After one month the agar began growing a red bacteria. These decompositional microbes are nature’s way of recycling and reclaiming the intricate creations of the ant’s civilizations into their most basic form. The microscopic particles that make up the properties of the organism are all that is left once again.

Documentation by Roberto A. Terrones Jr. and Peter Apparetti

"Downloading" is set up to mimic specimen jars you would find in a natural history museum. Often you see different parts of the body such as organs in these jars. In "Downloading" I filled the tiny jars with the parts of an old desktop computer. Each part contributed to the body of the computer, and the memory functions they previously performed. It got me thinking what an unnatural history museum would look like, documenting the first signs of life of A.I.   

The forced swim test is a rodent behavioral test used for evaluation of antidepressant drugs, antidepressant efficacy of new compounds, and experimental manipulations that are aimed at rendering or preventing depressive-like states. Mice are placed in an inescapable transparent tank that is filled with water and their escape related mobility behavior is measured.

In this performance I wrapped a space in plastic wrap and conducted my own version of the experiment by trapping myself inside the space, and "swimming" through to the other side. At the conclusion of the performance, I "swim" back through the plastic wrap trapping myself back in by taping through the holes I tore through in the beginning. During the performance a binural delta wave audio clip is repeating. These sounds are designed to reduce anxiety and promote healthy sleep using sound waves. It also gives the effect of being surrounded by water.   

The performance alludes to unhealthy ways we deal with stress. 

Special thanks to Rachel Zelinka, Alexandra Derderian, Duy Hoang and Peter Apparetti

An installation and performance collaboration with Alexandra Derderian that explores the ideas surrounding "Buffering". Photos taken by Pete Apparetti. 

Buffering is about the word buffer and how it has developed to describe the digital task of transfering and processing data. In a time when we are all buffering and keeping up with the massive amount of information being fed to us through multiple platforms, we wanted to explore the implications of us as a community  buffering as we try and catch up, transfer and process all the data being made available to us. 

An installation made to simulate the intimate moment of being in bed with another sleeping person while the light comes in through the curtains. 

"Privacy" is a moveable installation space with a lock. I did a series of three performances about privacy in the structure over a period of three months. For the duration of the three months, I slept and worked in the structure.