In December 2025, during my first Residency at Ballyfin, I had free rein to explore and forage from the incredible grounds surrounding the hotel. I also had dedicated space to continue design work on The Keeping, a life-size cloak that I was designing for my Filial Love exhibition which would open in Dublin a few months later.

The Keeping is a sculptural cloak composed of dried flowers embedded in resin, positioned in dialogue with a granite boulder. The cloak was made to size for my mother and the flowers were all foraged from her garden over a two year period. The Keeping was inspired by the tradition of cloaks handed down from mother to daughter at the time of marriage. It invites us to consider ideas around ownership and nurturing, reflecting time invested, craftsmanship and caring attention, while the elements included form a meditation on protection, labour and enduring care - personal, generational and ecological.