Lost Lace is a collaborative project between visual artist Miriam McConnon and poet Jessica Traynor, with the participation of families who have lost loved ones to Covid-19 in Ireland.
McConnon's outdoor installation Lost Lace is made up of approximately ten thousand white roses made by the artist from individual white handkerchiefs - the artist will place the roses around one of the fountains at Dublin's Iveagh Gardens. Forming a delicate pattern of traditional Irish lace, each handkerchief rose symbolizes a life lost in Ireland and Northern Ireland due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Watch: Jessica Traynor reads Knotwork, for the Lost Lace project
Traynor was commissioned to write a series of four poems, taking as a guiding principle the ambition to honour those things we have lost in the past two years – people, skills, art, connection.
Exploring and responding to themes such as the lost art of Irish lacemaking, the ancient practice of tying 'clooties' at holy wells, and the words and messages submitted to the project's website by those who have lost friends and relatives to Coronavirus, she has weaved these themes together through poetry.
Read Jessica Traynor's poem Hand In Glove below.
Hand in Glove
At the end, there is a pier we walk alone
to stand beside an ocean
unlike any you have seen.
You know this element will change you,
rearrange your atoms until you too
are water; moving always,
losing your memories in marsh pools and weirs,
learning the ways of salmon
that move against tides.
But before this untying of the knots inside –
one touch is all we ask,
one glove slipped, the warmth
of fingers knitting together
to hold with us inside the water,
like earth's residual heat
riding the currents in midwinter.
Lost Lace will be launched at 3pm on 15 October 2022 at Iveagh Gardens, Dublin. The work will also be accessible to the public through the use of QR codes allowing visitors to the Iveagh Gardens access to a transcript of the poems, and a recording of the poet reading them.
Find out more about the Lost Lace project here.
