“This certainly isn’t a kip,” Avril said to us the first time she visited. Yet within this place that is a home, everything needs a wiggle, and there is something living in the gap between the ceiling and the floor. The corners of the woodwork are coming apart. Slowly falling into disrepair.

Dreoigh: to decay, to wither.

By the mid 1700s the potato was the primary food source in Ireland. Between 1845 – 1852 repeated crop failures, caused by potato blight, had led to mass famine. Exacerbated by Britain’s policies that engineered the ensuing crisis, a million people died and two million more emigrated.

The creature has already started building its laboratory, to help prolong the longevity of its cache. Confusingly, it shares its name with our landlord. Throughout all hours of the night it is busy banging away, dragging appliances from left to right, getting it all set up just so. Its actions reverberate, amplified through the hollows of the floorboards.

It started with one drop and spread outwards. Following the paths of least resistance, but flowing in all directions, the pathogens took hold. Microorganisms swell into celestial maps, teeming with life.

As a consequence of the fallout, all seasons are here at once. Artificial snow settles. The fluffy polymers have absorbed 800 times their own weight in moisture.






Moss has colonised the skylight. A finger is dragged through years of build-up, that blooms across the surface of the glass, itself a giant petri dish. The lunar movement has halted, caught within a microscopic slide, bringing it within touching distance.








Tucked away in the crevice under the stairs, crammed in, speaking in whispers. A spoken cauldron, bubble, crackle, and fizz. The saliva animates the pressurised carbon dioxide, trapped in under high pressure; it pops. Still the banging under the floorboards continues. The space in between acts like an oral cavity, waiting to be filled with sweets.

Tea cups become lab beakers. Science experiments in the kitchen fizz away. Our spoons have been half shined.



Avril Corroon makes sculpture, installation, moving-image, performance, and social practice that examine inequity and how architecture manifests governance. She collects and juxtaposes context-specific materials and images to create associative space. She has made cheese from toxic mould, collected 1,800L of dehumidifier water, and performed on a city rooftop as the Airbnb logo.

Recent exhibitions include GOT DAMP / PÚSCADH ANUAS at Project Arts Centre, Dublin and TACO!, London (2023); Cow & Gate, Sismógrafo, Porto (2022); AVR I4L C070 RRN, PEER, London (2021); and Spoiled Spores, The Lab Gallery, Dublin (2019). She is a 2020 recipient of the Next Generation Award from Arts Council Ireland. Corroon graduated with a Masters in Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2019 and is currently a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.

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