CO2RE Artists: Billie Ireland
Sculpting Biochar for Creative Greenhouse Gas Removal
This project will explore the creative and ecological potential of biochar and carbon sequestration through material research and a residency at a regenerative farming project.
Billie Ireland will be making temporary land art investigating reverential practice to connect to place and the more than human. In contrast she will experiment with waste materials, complex and hand crafted forms using pyrolysis to turn the sculpture into biochar carbon. Billie will also use the duration of the project to explore and emphasise our fragility and connection to carbon material and GGR.
The project aims to shift perceptions of carbon from being a pollutant to a sacred essential element in our efforts to create a diverse open discourse around climate. There will be a legacy of research, film, photographs and material artefacts for public exhibition.
Images: Selection of Billie Ireland’s previous work, credit Billie Ireland
About the Artist - Billie Ireland
Billie Ireland is an artist and teacher living in Wales, UK. She makes research-driven, site-responsive, temporary land art interventions, sculpture, paperworks and film.
For the past three years, the exploration of biochar and pyrolysis has been a central process in her work. Biochar is a type of charcoal produced from organic waste, with diverse applications in regenerative agriculture, greenhouse gas removal, environmental conservation, archaeology, and technology.
With carbon’s legacy of power, extraction and exploitation it has been through sacred ecology and connections to place that Billie has attempted to reconnect with this sustaining material. Themes of sacrifice, fragility, and resilience weave through the work, offering insights into the intersections of care, creation & connection.
Billie’s current practice attempts to capture the cycles of unseen labor and energy at the heart of both creation and craft, whilst making the flow and transformation of carbon and life’s fleeting nature palpable.
Follow Billie Ireland on Instagram
Image: Portrait of the Artist at The Centre for Alternative Technology Credit: Dulcie Fairweather