Gorse bush Wedding Dress, 2025
Installation view, CCA Derry Londonderry.
Photographs by CCA Derry Londonderry and Paola Bernardelli.
Material: Sculptural silk shibori and nettle dye.
Gorse Wedding Dress is an installation that takes the gorse bush as both romantic symbol and ecological troublemaker. Drawing on the old saying “When gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season', that equates flowering gorse with the perpetual availability of love, the work starts from the premise that intimacy, like gorse, refuses neat seasonal boundaries. Gorse flowers almost year-round, blazing yellow through wind, salt, and neglect, suggesting a form of desire that is stubborn, ongoing, and difficult to suppress.
At the same time, gorse is widely classified as a major invasive species, valued for its resilience while aggressively managed, cut back, or eradicated. The work sits within this tension and asks a direct question: how can we love our invasives? By holding romance and control in the same frame, the piece reflects on how certain bodies, ecologies, and desires are celebrated for their beauty while being disciplined for their excess.
Installation view, CCA Derry Londonderry.
Photographs by CCA Derry Londonderry and Paola Bernardelli.
Material: Sculptural silk shibori and nettle dye.
Gorse Wedding Dress is an installation that takes the gorse bush as both romantic symbol and ecological troublemaker. Drawing on the old saying “When gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season', that equates flowering gorse with the perpetual availability of love, the work starts from the premise that intimacy, like gorse, refuses neat seasonal boundaries. Gorse flowers almost year-round, blazing yellow through wind, salt, and neglect, suggesting a form of desire that is stubborn, ongoing, and difficult to suppress.
At the same time, gorse is widely classified as a major invasive species, valued for its resilience while aggressively managed, cut back, or eradicated. The work sits within this tension and asks a direct question: how can we love our invasives? By holding romance and control in the same frame, the piece reflects on how certain bodies, ecologies, and desires are celebrated for their beauty while being disciplined for their excess.
