Artist’s Statement - Lost Lace outdoor installation

Miriam Mc Connon’s outdoor installation Lost Lace is consistent with her other artwork in its use of the personal narrative to communicate social issues to a wider public audience. In this case an individual life lost to covid is represented as a single white handkerchief rose. It is presented along with over 10,000 other roses in a lace pattern in Dublin’s Iveagh gardens.

As she often does, she calls on the personal narrative behind domestic objects to mark events of change in history. In this case, through the objects of the handkerchief and  lace, she relates the objects to the ancient Irish tradition of hanging clooties (handkerchiefs) at the sacred sites of wells in pagan Ireland in the hope of curing an illness.

The use of bedding material to make the roses references the sensitive and intimate narrative of a person’s last days in bed due to the onset of Covid 19. This installation Lost lace is a homage to the human story behind each of these ten thousand roses and urges the public not to lose sight of the individual life amidst the collective and national grief.