The Future is Clean and Round

The Future is Clean and Round is an interdisciplinary performance exploring the emotional impacts of the Climate Crisis.

The Future is Clean and Round is an interdisciplinary installation and performance created by Rosa Makela with performance direction by Éadaoin Fox, composition and sound design by Ruairí De Búrca and film by Ferdia MacAonghusa. It is an artistic exploration of the emotional impact of the climate crisis, the meaning of the crisis and the experience of growing up in these circumstances. It excavates these ideas through film, sound, text, installation and performance. The work challenges the notion of emotion having to exist in a private realm, and explores the impacts of putting emotion in relation to the climate emergency on display. Through these ideas and work’s multidisciplinarity it seeks to reject the strict dichotomies of dualisms such as human/nature and emotion/reason.

The piece utilises several textures, languages, and technologies of performance. Hanging from the ceiling are dresses, antique lace and a shirt surrounded by small frozen ice sculptures that have been dyed with blue ink. The melting ice creates durational damage that first appears small and futile, but grows.

The live embodied space is countered by the two-dimensionality of a film. It shows a projection of a woman becoming more and more submerged in the sea. As the water encroaches her, she continues to attempt to complete her daily rituals: combing her hair, eating meals, brushing her teeth. The woman in the performance bridges the corporeal gaps between the objects and the projection of herself. Together in the space, the work displays natural and unnatural entities while the performer mediates between them.

About the artists

• Rosa Mäkelä is an artist from County Galway, Ireland. She studied her BA Drama and Theatre and MA in Creative Writing at University College Cork.
• Eadaoin Fox is a director from County Cork. She studied Drama and Theatre at University College Cork and Theatre Directing at Royal Holloway, London.
• Ruairi De Burca is a composer and musician. He has a BA in Music and an MA in experimental sound practice from University College Cork.
• Ferdia MacAonghusa is a writer and filmmaker from Spiddal County Galway and studied film at IADT.