1iing heaney’s debut solo at Mermaid Arts Centre explores themes of preservation, perpetual life, replication, and authenticity in the digital world. Emanating from the artist’s ongoing research into Wicklow’s protected native oak forest at Tomnafinnoge Woods, heaney takes objects from nature and re-presents them as virtual and reimagined artefacts.

Using a blend of digital imaging and scanning methods, she proposes a microcosmic exploration of technological integration in the natural world, reimagining the fruit and seeds of trees and plants as companions to vibrant 3D-printed sculptures rendered in brilliant hypernatural colour, interspersed with germinating acorns from Tomnafinnogue oak trees .

Combined with lo-fi electronics and small scale CGI videos, these ‘cyber botanicals’ speculate on the growth and life of organisms in digital space, creating what the artist refers to as a kind of ‘uncanny nature table’.

The exhibition’s accompanying limited edition booklet offers an a pair of specially commissioned essays by National Museum of Ireland Country Life Keeper Clodagh Doyle and heaney’s occasional collaborator Emily Aoibheann, each speculating on the nature of these imaginings. Are they a kind of botanic changeling signifying future hybrids?

Mysterious and mystical, the viewer is asked to consider the passage of digital time and seasonal change, and the myriad possibilities as they meet.

World Without End is also kindly supported by Fingal Arts Office and The Courthouse Arts Centre, Co. Wicklow.