Voice Rewilding – The Making and Breaking of the “Box”

Voice Rewilding was a project exhibited as part of the fourth-year degree show on Sherkin Island, Ireland in 2026. The project was inspired by the lived experience of stammering. Spanning over two years, with the final exhibition taking place in May 2026. It looked at stammering outside of the medical lens and brought it into a metaphorical context, allowing space for voice and disability to be expanded into new terrains of creative practice.

Voice Rewilding — Sherkin Island

The project took place over two years, documenting oral accounts of people living with stammered speech. It was inspired by my own experience living as a covert stammerer, and the obstacles that we navigate daily in order to manage a stammer. I was also interested in the stammer as a living and breathing presence, one that only shows up when there are people present. In this sense, the stammer has a relational quality; it shifts depending on when and where it appears.

Voice Rewilding – Interior Structure Build

Another part of the project was an interest in the intersection of voice, repetition, sound, and rhythm, and how those textures parallel the landscape. Voice and landscape sit in tandem with one another in their unpredictability and shifting forms.

The textile works were informed by the stories being told and worked in unison with the short film. The interior displayed a stained-glass effect, with light filtering through the textiles and wind moving through the structure and film. Sitting within the space, you became immersed in an installation that was both sensory and bodily in nature.

Voice Rewilding — Interior Structure and Digital Screen

All in all, this body of work encompassed sculpture, textiles, film, and illustration. It was a work in progress where each step informed the next, like a conversation between forms, natural landscapes, and narratives.

The reception and response to the exhibition was amazing, and I’m so thankful to everyone who came out in the sun and rain that weekend. Big thanks also to all the lecturers and TU staff, along with the community of Sherkin Island and everyone along the way. It lashed rain on the Sunday, just in time for de-install.

Next stop – Uillinn.

Finished Structure - Sherkin Island (Richard’s Field) & Tiff (Project Manager)