ärdefakt

This project began in Kilkenny County, Ireland while on residence at Shankill Castle. While in Ireland, Furness took a visit to Dublin where she visited the National Museum of Archeology and discovered an exhibition on the Vikings of the Irish Sea. These Vikings included her Furness heritage, with artifacts depicting the life of these people. For this work, personal Viking artifacts were appropriated and drawn on raw linen in the format of the Book of Kells with materials that would erode with the damp climate. The artist cut the larger piece of linen apart, separating the personal artifacts and embedded them in the ruins of a 12th century church and graveyard on the lands of Shankill Castle, ritualizing her connection with these Vikings and the imagined loss of lives due to their invasion. The work was subtitled “disentanglement” and the fragments of drawing were left on site for 30 days while the artist returned to the U.S. They were shipped back and unrolled, revealing the illusion of time and age. The artist then reconstructed the drawing as a “new” artifact in the form of a quilt backed with moss. The piece has had multiple lives as an object, its history in transformation.