LASER ETCHED COPPER PLATE
2026
Ash Pile 2022 is a laser etched copper plate, appropriating the form of a ‘Daguerreotype’, an early photographic process. The image is a Google Map screenshot of a Quarry Ash Pile from Poolbeg Incinerator, dated 2022.
The use of copper is to mimic a ‘Daguerreotype’, a silver coated copper plate, early photography’s complex historical ties to imperialism. The work is a sculptural image that reflects on the likeness of 19th Century cartography of Ireland to Google Maps, mapping a legacy of surveillance and commodification of land.
The work is part of a larger installation titled ‘(down to a) Monochromatic Fault’ exploring a speculative relationship between Dunsink Dump and Poolbeg Incinerator through their respective ties to the 19th Century ‘Ordnance Survey’, reflecting on extraction, waste and value.
Chiara Patton Fea is a Dublin based multi-disciplinary artist and recent NCAD graduate. Her practice examines the residuals of colonial legacies in relation to contemporary technologies, spectral elements of Irish infrastructure and their consequential impact on landscape, embodiment and collective memory.
Her process spans across writing, sculpture, moving image and sound utilising site specific research in urban terrain. She interrogates ideas of linear progress and the intimate parallels between ‘public’ and ‘private’. Her research is informed by decolonial practices and spatial politics with particular emphasis on the tensions of ‘resolved’ and ‘unresolved’ in both research and artistic outputs.