Decco’s Cave

Lead, HD Video
2018

Trace is the core component of local legend. One true base event occurs, but through the passing on, degeneration and manipulation of information, new alternate timelines are constructed and proliferated. On Whiterock beach, Killiney, Co Dublin there is a small cave behind a large outcrop of rocks. Once an old lead mine, this cave is shrouded in local legend for once being the inhabitance of a man named Decco.

Facts regarding who he was and where he came from fluctuate greatly regarding on which source you adhere to. Through the compilation of information from interviews with locals, online messaging boards and literature published about the area, I have distinguished three  separate legends that shed light on his elusive character.

Decco’s Cave pays homage to these three separate timelines that local legend has produced. Proposed realities are brought to full realisation, regardless of their conflicting facts. Full autonomy and attention is given to these timelines. Objects are imagined and constructed according to the proposed realities of the three stories. These objects are created as artefacts, that ,if their corresponding legends were true, would be expected to be found within the cave.I have used lead, as the one common tie between timelines, to mould pivotal artefacts of each story, while other auxiliary objects have been rendered digitaly. These physical items, a bear skull, bed knob and axe head, have been left in the cave to act as artefacts and to incite other storylines based around the inhabitants of the cave.