Under a Vaulted Sky
Under a Vaulted Sky — Feminist Lens-Based Art and the Rewilding of Faith in Contemporary Ireland
Pauline Rowan’s Under a Vaulted Sky is a multidisciplinary body of work that merges photography, installation, and performance to explore the complex intersections between Irish spirituality, memory, and landscape. Centred on a deconsecrated convent and its rewilded gardens, the project captures Ireland’s evolving relationship with the post-Catholic environment, while reflecting on women’s lives, ecological renewal, and cultural transformation.
Described by the Irish Arts Review as “a poignant reflection on Ireland’s changing built environment and secularisation,” the series reconceives religious spaces as deeply feminist, ecological, and sensory zones. Rowan’s lens-based practice, grounded in both fine art and film, embodies what critics call a “successful transformation of the photographic into the spatial,” bringing to life immersive environments that challenge the permanence of faith and institution.
At the Royal Hibernian Academy and Photo Museum Ireland, Under a Vaulted Sky has been recognised for mixing symbolism and intimacy through found objects, archival materials, and organic elements. As feminist writer Rebecca O’Dwyer notes, “By fusing botanical and religious imagery, Rowan suggests women’s bodies as just another outpost of patriarchy... both life-giving and in need of control.”
This project stands as an articulate examples of Irish contemporary photography examining post-religious identity and feminist reclamation. Integrating installation, ecology, and material narrative, Rowan echoes critics such as Phillina Sun, who describes the convent garden as “a fragile ecosystem of mutual support and care.” Through her visual anthropology of ruins and ritual, Rowan reconstructs the psychological landscape of belonging and belief, offering viewers a vital reimagining of Ireland’s artistic relationship to spirituality, gender, and environment.
This project’s resonance, however, reaches far beyond Ireland’s borders. By interrogating home, spirituality, and the legacies of control, Under a Vaulted Sky offers a powerful dialogue with the Irish diaspora worldwide—individuals and communities shaped by migration, exile, and the remnants of colonial and religious dominance. Rowan’s work invites reflection and connection with cultures across the globe whose experiences mirror Ireland’s: postcolonial societies navigating the aftermath of imposed faith, patriarchal systems, and the reclamation of land and identity.
