Circumstances of Loss 3 animations, various durations, audio, looped 2025

Examining the legacies of colonialism on maritime data practices, Circumstances of Loss juxtaposes historical records of vessels lost, abandoned, condemned and wrecked at sea with contemporary visions of the seabed around the Irish coast. Positioned next to the pages of books including Weather Prediction (1940) by R.M. Lester, Warships, U-boats and Liners: A Guide to Shipwrecks in Irish Waters (2012) by Karl Brady, and Going Nuclear: Ireland, Britain and the Campaign to Close Sellafield (2018) by Veronica McDermott, the artworks track back to the Lloyd’s Register, a report on the condition of ships first circulated in 1764. Between reams of documents and pulses of light, the artworks consider how vessel monitoring practices developed at the height of maritime empire continue to scan across ocean science, technology, militarisation, and chemical contamination.