Hehir & Noonan (Cork Printmakers) were awarded the PNI Centre Culturel Irlandais Residency which took place in August 2026.
“During our time at the Centre Culturel Irlandais our intention was to investigate “Contested Space” through the lens of Paris’ complex social, historical, political and ecological landscape. The city is charged with examples of how space is defined, redefined, and often contested.
We aimed to focus on research whilst also utilising the studio as a test space dedicated to both making and thinking, providing us with concentrated time to examine, assemble, absorb, and reflect on our outcomes.
The act of walking the city of Paris and the psychogeography of the place stimulated us to respond to themes of Contested Space through the lens of ecology. We created immediate responses to our surroundings by developing site specific phytograms and frottages taken from the trees in the garden and the streets near Rue de Irlandais. The marks, textures and traces produced through these methods became records of particular sites and spaces. We became aware of the different layers, histories, and tensions embedded within its streets, gardens, buildings, and public spaces.
We also engaged with analogue processes such as pinhole photography and cyanotype as we wanted to use processes that compelled us to slow down, actively absorb our environment and engage in the process of making. We wanted the outdoor experience to be evident in the work, particularly in relation to pinhole photography, as its use of light and timelapse dictates the outcome.
The residency offered us immersion in the city of Paris, access to galleries and libraries such as the Jardin des Plantes, the Museum de la Chasse et de la Nature, while also exploring Joseph Vallot’s Essai sur la flore du pavé de Paris and the citizen science programs Sauvages de ma rue. The CCI residency provided us with the time, space, and the focus necessary to deepen our creative practice, the environment fostered a sense of collaboration and engagement, enabling our research to develop and expand. It has significantly influenced our work, allowing us to extend our artistic inquiries and approach complex themes such as ownership, erasure, environmental decline, and cultural memory.
In parallel with this exploration, we are working on compiling our findings into a specialised wooden cabinet of curiosities and archive, entitled Sauvages de ma Rue. Conceived as both a repository and a mobile exhibition, the cabinet brings together the materials, observations, and responses gathered throughout our engagement with the streets, gardens, and ecological spaces surrounding Rue des Irlandais.
Opening the drawer will reveals a collection of plant casts, terrains, natural habitat dioramas, botanical specimens, and printed matter, alongside more poetic and interpretive works. Among these are poems, such as A Herbal by Seamus Heaney, which introduces another layer of reflection on our relationship with plants, landscape, memory, and place. Each drawer offers a different encounter.
The cabinet functions as a mobile archive, allowing the work to move beyond the specific sites in which it was created. It preserves traces of our walks and encounters while simultaneously transforming them into an intimate, portable exhibition. The act of opening, handling, and discovering each drawer becomes a form of ecological exploration in itself, inviting the viewer to consider the overlooked plant life and natural systems embedded within the urban landscape.”
