Above: Plan of rainbow with colour charts and notes for construction. Studio photograph, August 2008

Sunday August 24th: seven volunteers, two child helpers and two dogs gather on a deforested site in North Co. Leitrim to errect a wooden rainbow; a roadside hoarding that advertises nothing.

Where rainbows occur naturally and by chance, this event was planned and engineered in detail, and involved a good deal of physical work – drilling, sawing, hammering, lifting.

Part barn-raising, part folly, part idiosyncratic architecture, the rainbow is a sincere (if kitschy) expression of collective labour: huge thanks to Gordon, Craig, Bryonie, Anna, Ciara, Gareth, Peter, Ruth, Leander and Celia who made this possible.

The rainbow is built near Lurganboy, and is visible leaving Manorhamilton on the Kinlough Road. It will remain until the end of October – if it doesn’t collapse first.

 

 

This work is part of the New Sites, New Fields project at Leitrim Sculpture Centre that will open on October 4 2008. A super 8mm film has been shot to document the process of building the rainbow which will be screened later in 2008/9.