Tonn Chlíodhna: When Process Becomes Art

Tonn Chlíodhna: When Process Becomes Art

My latest installation for Kinsale Arts Weekend 2025 explores the mythology of creative breakthrough through Ireland’s ancient wave legends

Sometimes the perfect theme finds you at exactly the right moment. When Kinsale Arts Weekend announced “The Ninth Wave” as their 2025 theme, I knew immediately which image would anchor my Walking Gallery installation—a dramatic wave capture from 2020, made during a patient session near Dun Briste on Mayo’s north coast.

But this installation, now complete in a pharmacy window on Kinsale’s Market Square, is about much more than a single successful frame.

The Mythology of Making

In Irish tradition, Clíodhna, Queen of the Banshees, waits eternally by the shore for her lover’s return, only to be swept away by the ninth wave—Tonn Chlíodhna—that still bears her name in nearby Glandore harbour. It’s a story that resonates deeply with anyone who understands the creative process: the patient waiting, the accumulated attempts, the sudden transformative moment that makes all previous efforts worthwhile.

The ninth wave isn’t destructive—it’s culminative. In surfing culture, it’s the wave worth waiting for. In Roman maritime tradition, it marked the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. In my photography practice, it represents those rare moments when technical preparation, artistic vision, and natural timing align perfectly.

Beyond the Hero Shot

While the central framed piece commands the window space, the real story lies in what surrounds it. The main image has been professionally produced by WhiteWall, the renowned German photo lab. Their signature ultraHD process uses solid-state laser exposure on Fuji Crystal Professional Archive Maxima paper, creating unprecedented detail reproduction and colour depth that conventional printing cannot match.

The floater frame presentation—82.5 x 60cm print in white maple with 2mm acrylic glazing mounted on 3mm Dibond—transforms the image into gallery-ready art. WhiteWall’s proprietary ultra HD technology, combined with its climate-controlled German facility and precision mounting, ensures the kind of archival quality that serious collectors and museums demand. The floating presentation allows the image to breathe within its frame, emphasising both the technical excellence and the raw power of the Atlantic moment it captures. Instead of treating this as a simple display of finished work, I wanted to make visible the usually hidden process of learning through apparent failure.

Working prints from the same sessions, along with related wave captures, are roughly mounted on salvaged timber from the local co-op. Hand-driven nails, irregular spacing, scattered hardware on the window floor—these aren’t accidents but deliberate choices that reference both Kinsale’s working harbour aesthetic and the improvised, accumulative nature of photographic learning.

Each of these “supporting” prints represents part of the building energy that made the final image possible. They’re not failed attempts—they’re essential steps in understanding light, timing, and the particular character of Atlantic waters meeting the Irish coast.

The Window as Gallery Space

There’s something powerful about art interrupting everyday commerce. Passersby stop, read, linger—drawn perhaps by the familiar yet dramatic imagery, or by the unexpected transformation of working prints into sculptural elements. The pharmacy window becomes a threshold space where the mythological and the contemporary meet.

The rough timber mounting pays homage to traditional Irish boat building, where function creates beauty through accumulated skill and available materials. Like those maritime craftsmen, photographers build understanding through repetition, adjustment, and the patient accumulation of knowledge about materials—in our case, light, water, and time.

Cultural Resonance

What makes this installation particularly meaningful is its connection to living tradition. Glandore harbour, just forty minutes from Kinsale, still experiences the tidal phenomenon locals recognise as Tonn Chlíodhna. The mythological wave isn’t ancient history—it’s an observable force that continues to shape both the physical landscape and local consciousness.

This grounds the work in something more profound than artistic interpretation. It becomes documentation of an ongoing relationship between place, story, and the Atlantic forces that continue to define Ireland’s western edge.

Process as Primary Content

Contemporary photography has increasingly embraced what was once considered “behind the scenes” material as legitimate artistic content. Wolfgang Tillmans’ contact sheet installations, Jim Goldberg’s “Proof” project, the travelling Magnum Contact Sheets exhibitions—all recognise that the process of selection, the evidence of decision-making, can be as compelling as the final chosen image.

This installation positions working prints not as supporting documentation but as co-equal elements in understanding how breakthrough emerges from accumulated attempts. The scattered nails, the weathered timber, the deliberately rough mounting—these details insist that authenticity comes through engagement with process, not avoidance of it.

Living with the Work

Having the installation up for a month before Kinsale Arts Weekend (July 10-13) allows it to become part of the town’s visual landscape rather than a special event. People encounter it during routine errands, school runs, and daily life. This integration feels important—art working within the community rather than being imposed upon it.

The piece will reach full context during the Arts Weekend itself, when visitors can explore the broader “Ninth Wave” theme through music (including Kate Bush reinterpretations), theatre, visual arts, and talks. However, having it present during the ordinary weeks leading up to the festival creates a different kind of relationship between the work and the audience.

The Muse Does Her Work

There’s a line I’ve been thinking about throughout this project: “The muse does her work in her own time.” It’s become something of a personal motto about creative patience—the recognition that forcing a breakthrough rarely works, while patient preparation for the right moment almost always does.

The installation embodies this philosophy. The hero image exists because of all the times the light wasn’t quite right, the timing was off, and the composition didn’t resolve. Those aren’t failures to be hidden—they’re the foundation that made recognition possible when the ninth wave finally arrived.

“Tonn Chlíodhna” is part of the Walking Gallery for Kinsale Arts Weekend 2025, July 10-13. The installation can be viewed at Kinsale Pharmacy on Market Square during the festival period.

For more marine photography and ongoing projects, visit johncollinsphoto.com