Sinéad Kempley

s.kempley@sms.ed.ac.uk

www.sineadkempley.com

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flexi tub, sand cast glass, acid mine drainage with hydrous ferric oxide deposit (a potential selenium trap) collected from disused coal mine, Spittal beach, Northumberland, 2022

surplus green vapour barrier, ice cube freezer bag with marine sediment fertiliser, wooden pallet, aluminium tray, soap-cast kelp root

Green surplus vapour barrier, steel frame, 12l tank, flexi bucket, orange extension lead, slip-cast waste rubber

Slip-cast waste rubber, vacuum storage bag, cardboard packaging, 2022.

slumped glass on aluminium box with condensation

slumped glass on aluminium box with condensation on glass

surplus green vapour barrier, 10l water tank with tap, hydrous ferric oxide deposit, lampshade wire, cast rubber with heat sensitive pigment, 2022.

Slip-cast rubber doormat waste fragment coated in ochre sediment, 2022.

plastic screen wash container leaning on roll of green surplus vapour barrier, container filled with liquid and sedimenting ochre on base.

Greensand marine sediment in ice cube bag, surplus green vapour barrier in roll, 2022.

surplus green vapour barrier, cardboard reel, orange extension lead, glazed ceramic bowl, waste beach plastic, hydrous ferric oxide deposit, 2022.

surplus green vapour barrier, pebbledash rocks (spat out from pebbledash filled base of trees, Grassmarket, Edinburgh), 2022.

12l tank with liquid containing hydrous ferric oxide deposit (a potential selenium trap) collected from disused coal mine, tap, aluminium frame to hang container.

lamp shade wire, cast rubber with heat sensitive pigment

plug, plug timer, slip-cast ceramic waste rubber doormat fragment

flexi tub, sand cast glass, acid mine drainage with hydrous ferric oxide deposit, steel frame, green surplus vapour barrier, orange extension lead

Artist Statement

Through open-ended assemblages of human and more-than-human remnants, my practice engages with the depletion and transformation of matter. My work is installation based and is led by materials as they disintegrate, flow, merge, leak and seep. These installations inhabit multiple temporalities, be that through a residue, a material life-span, a fossilisation. I am interested in the unruly materials and systems that disrupt dominant classifications of value and use.

The murky ochre liquid that spills through temporary sediment storage (in a plastic tank which will inevitably leak, melting in cubes, condensing on slumped glass) is collected from the drainage of a disused coal mine that runs onto a Northumberland beach through to the ocean. As the tide changes each day, pools of the ochre sediment merge with salty currents in ever varying dilutions and configurations, sedimenting on any organic or waste material it finds on the way. Although the toxic levels of metals in ochres themselves pose a risk to aquatic life, this sediment can also act as a remediation material for other contaminants such as Selenium, which is at particularly high levels in Northumberland coal. A semi-metal trace element that is usually hard to separate from the sulphides or organic matter it is fixed with, Selenium is used in e-tech for solar cells and in nanotechnology for anti-inflammation and anti-infection treatments. In this acidic stream, it becomes unusually fluid until it is bound with the fine-powdered ochre sediment. A toxic element of historic extraction becomes commodity and another potential cycle of extraction begins.

I am starting a practice-based PhD at Edinburgh College of Art in September 2022, funded by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences College Research Award. My research interests are situated in the overlapping spheres of art, ecocriticism, microbiology, material philosophy, feminist scholarship, fictioning and education.

List of materials

12l water tank, acid mine drainage with hydrous ferric oxide deposit collected from disused coal mine, Spittal beach, Northumberland, flexi tub, sand cast glass from 3d scan of tube worm fossil, lamp shape wire, rubber cast with heat-sensitive pigment, surplus green vapour barrier, brushed steel stand, black clamps, green marine sediment fertiliser in ice cube freezer bag, waste rubber fragment with hydrous ferric oxide deposit, aluminium folded box, agar bioplastic, soap-cast fused kelp roots, frozen acid mine drainage in ice cube freezer bag, orange extention lead, pebbledash rocks (spat out from pebbledash filled base of trees, Grassmarket, Edinburgh), cardboard and aluminium spool, glazed ceramic bowl, waste beach plastic, hydrous ferric oxide deposit, slumped glass sheet, aluminium box, liquid collected from sand dune swamp, humidifier. Cardboard packaging, vacuum storage bags, ceramic slip-cast rubber doormat waste fragment, lampshade wire.