The Great Wonder Proposal

The Great Wonder, proposal

This proposal was long listed for a sculpture competition for the James O’Connell Plinth in front of Dublin City Hall, Ireland, 2020.
By Jay Critchley

Famine and starvation, referred to euphemistically today as food insecurity, and the wholesale eradication and subjugation of indigenous peoples, is an ongoing global tragedy, exacerbated by environmental disruption, war and violence. The ingredients are familiar: drought and water scarcity, fossil fuel extraction, deforestation, desertification, overpopulation, extreme weather, and in short, climate change. Add to that the COVID-19 pandemic.

Irish patriot Daniel O’Connell - The Liberator died as The Potato Famine decimated the country. The blight that affected poor subsistence farmers and families created a genocidal catastrophe unparalleled even today. It also put a hold on O'Connell's work and vision for a free Ireland. But his message for freedom and democracy is a global message that many struggling and divided nations need to hear. The Great Hunger becomes The Great Wonder.

The potato, brought from the Andes of Peru and Bolivia to Ireland and the world, has a story of global significance. No country is better suited to tell this story than the Irish with their resolve since the devastation of The Great Hunger and the country’s evolution as a major economy and democracy.

The Great Wonder, a sculpture of a fabricated potato approximately 10’ high x 5’ in circumference, would be installed on the empty plinth in front of Dublin City Hall. It will elevate this seemingly stodgy vegetable that once fed the nation’s Catholic majority of poor farmers before the potato crop rotted from the blight, elevating the potato as a symbol of Irish resilience and a cultural signifier of surviving the past, meeting the present and looking to the future of a world that does not go hungry.

The Great Wonder sculpture would be fabricated from environmentally-friendly natural fiber composites with plant oil-based resin. Vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding or resin vacuum infusion processes will be used to make composites out of plant oil-based resin [acrylated epoxidized soybean oil (AESO)] and natural fiber mats made of flax, cellulose, pulp and hemp. No fossil fuels will be employed. These low-cost natural composites have mechanical strength and properties suitable for applications in housing construction materials, furniture and automotive parts.

In the past, “beer and potatoes” was a catch phrase the world used to describe Ireland. Times have changed. The country and the culinary potato have indeed made a comeback. What might the potato signify in 2020? Now, food and sustenance become the “The Liberator”.

I am a US citizen whose maternal grandparents came from Ireland, from both sides of the present border that divides Ireland. I know the personal impact and tenacity of the potato that was ever present in my childhood, along with the tortuous history with England that both of our countries share.

Four hundred years ago in 1620, just seventy-one years after the conquest of Ireland by the English, the conquest of the Americas was well underway. The emboldened Pilgrims of England, seeking religious freedom, landed in Provincetown Harbor on the Mayflower at Cape Cod, Massachusetts and confronted the Wampanoag Nation. One of the first things they did was steal a stash of Native corn. However by then, the tribe and most of the indigenous peoples of the Americas had been decimated by diseases brought by European colonizers by an estimated 90%.

There are thousands of varieties of potatoes feeding the world. Ireland’s popular varieties over the years are the Lumper, which succumbed to the blight, the Rooster, the Golden Wonder and the Oria, to name a few. With popular interest in the country promoted by National Potato Day and with activities of groups like GIY (Grow It Yourself), The Great Wonder proposes to hold a national conversation about the potato and its significance in Irish history and its ramifications today. This could dovetail with the World Potato Congress scheduled in Dublin in mid 2021.

As part of the development of the project, I would initiate a series of public surveys, online or COVID-safe Town Hall gatherings, and elicit stories and photographs - present or archival, and ask for a referendum on their favorite potato, whether from a grocery store or grown in their garden.

And the suspenseful question: What type of potato will grace the honored spot on Daniel O’Connell’s former plinth?

Related Articles:

INSIDE IRELAND: WHAT IS THE O'CONNELL PLINTHAND WHAT WILL BE ON IT?
JANUARY 29, 2021 – IN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT, BY CIARÁN HANNA

PROVINCETOWN BANNER: AFTER POTATO SUBMISSION, ARTIST JAY CRITCHLEY EYES NEW PROJECT IN ANCESTRAL LANDS
MARCH 7, 2021, BY SUSAN BLOOD