About
Bonnie Kavanagh is a Dublin-based visual artist who in 2022 completed an MA in Ceramics at CSAD in Wales and a BA Fine Art in NCAD in 2018. In 2018 she won the overall student Future Makers award with DCCI. She has exhibited in numerous curated group shows including the Ceramics Ireland Selected Members exhibitions and the 2022 RHA and RUA annual exhibitions.
Press
Arts student pays tribute to Tuam babies with tiny hearts collection - Irish Independent, Saturday 12 May 2018
Aiséirí represents my response to the discovery of an unmarked mass grave of babies and small children at the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Ireland. These children were born in institutions in Ireland, to unmarried mothers, and kept secret and apart from the rest of society. Their burial on the grounds of this institution was also hidden and the lack of any acknowledgement of the huge loss of these children to their mothers and families leaves us shocked and horrified. Normally cultural rituals are crucial to help cope and heal from such unspeakable losses. It is the lack of cultural ritual, grieving, and healing that my installation Aiséirí acknowledges.
My intent in making this installation was to create a small sacred space of mourning, to acknowledge and honour the existence of these children. The process of making became my ritual. I cast 796 small baby and child-sized hearts, one for each one of the small child's remains. I cast the hearts in snow-white bone china to symbolise the brightness of the children in this otherwise sombre time of Irish history.
It is over a decade since the discovery of these babies but the parents and siblings continue to suffer further trauma as they await intervention and excavation of site.