Shane Finan, an Irish artist working across painting, film, writing, and interactive digital media, took up his postponed month-long residency at Kielderhead Wildwood Project in April 2021 as part of VARC’s ENTWINED: Rural. Land. Lives. Art. programme. Originally scheduled for April 2020, the residency was delayed for a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. During that time, Finan continued to develop related research remotely, sharing insights through a series of reflective essays on the VARC news feed, exploring themes of communication, networks, and connection during lockdown.
Shane’s multidisciplinary practice investigates complex networks and entanglements between human and nonhuman systems. His work frequently draws parallels between natural networks, such as forests, fungi, and ecological systems, and human-made structures like the internet or social networks. By assembling diverse materials and technologies, Finan explores how these systems mirror and influence each other, revealing interdependence as a defining quality of both natural and technological worlds. His collaborations have extended across fields and continents, working with foresters, ecologists, astrophysicists, farmers, and scientists at institutions including Trinity College Dublin, the University of Lincoln, and the Pierre Auger Observatory in Argentina.
During his ENTWINED residency, Shane worked in collaboration with the Northumberland Wildlife Trust’s Kielderhead Wildwood Project, which focuses on the regeneration of native woodland. His research centred on the so-called ‘Wood Wide Web’, a term coined in 1997 to describe the underground mycorrhizal networks through which fungi and trees communicate, exchange nutrients, and influence one another’s growth. This intricate web of life became a metaphor and model for Shane’s artistic exploration of connectivity, cooperation, and resilience.
Drawing inspiration from both ecological science and digital communication systems, Shane began developing an interactive digital artwork that encourages public engagement through participation and discovery. The project invites audiences to reflect on the parallels between natural and technological networks and to recognise biodiversity as an essential form of interconnection. Through this work, Shane aims to deepen the understanding of ecological collaboration and the benefits of coexistence in living systems.
By combining digital technology, scientific insight, and artistic imagination, Shane Finan’s residency embodies the ethos of ENTWINED: a recognition of how human and nonhuman lives, environments, and systems are intimately linked. His Never Just a Tree project stands as both an artistic and ecological study of communication—between species, networks, and communities.
