Theatremaker Luke Casserly introduces Distillation, which comes to the Peacock stage at the Abbey Theatre this month following an acclaimed run at the Dublin Theatre Festival.
As an artist from the rural midlands, the landscape where I grew up has had a major impact on my sensibility as a human being. Over the last three years, the physical landscape in this area has undergone enormous change through the cessation of the peat harvesting industry.
I have experienced first hand the complex nature of this change - with optimism for a new era of environmental potential, there also comes difficult questions around the disintegration of an industry and the impacts of this on the cultural and socio-economic wellbeing of the community.
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Listen: Luke Casserly talks to Oliver Callan
Like many, as the world began to incrementally shut down on account of the global pandemic, my journey got re-routed. I returned home to the place I grew up. In its now fallow state, I began to wonder how many micro-pandemics had occurred here in the last century. How many species had been disturbed on account of human activity and industrialisation?
I began to see the landscape as a vulnerable thing - unable to speak up for itself. I started to wonder how it might feel, having been degraded and abused so consistently for such an extended period of time.
I wondered what it might say, if it had a voice. Would it be angry? Would it want to cry? Or would it be forgiving?
Distillation is a performative journey which takes you to the Irish bog landscape through scent.
Over the past year, I have collaborated with renowned perfume maker Joan Woods to create a unique distillation of the Midlands bog - the place where I grew up - as the starting point for an olfactory encounter which looks at our human relationship to place.
I changed my perspective, and re-learned how to look.
Distillation is at the Peacock stage of the Abbey Theatre from 22 January - 10 February 2024 - find out more here.
