Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
What does it mean to inherit harm? In this episode of the Living Heritage, Making Culture podcast, artist and Askeaton Contemporary Arts director Michele Horrigan sits down with Kate Huber and Stacey Copeland to discuss life beside Aughinish Alumina—Europe's largest bauxite refinery, now Russian-owned—and the toxic legacy it has left across County Limerick.
Horrigan's commitment and connection to the region give her unique insights into the local natural and cultural heritage and their histories. In the latest episode of Living Culture, Making Heritage, Horrigan discusses her motivation and process behind collecting and curating the Stigma Damages archive. As an ongoing project, Stigma Damages highlights regional heritage that is often overlooked in broader national conversations about what we preserve, pollute, and industrialize. Horrigan describes, for example, integrating the work of local poets, such as Michael D. Ryan, into her video installations. With current imagery of Europe's largest bauxite refinery appearing alongside poems about the region from decades ago, Horrigan uses art to forge critical discussions about how the past and present shape collective futures.
Through Stigma Damages, Horrigan has built a counter-archive of found objects, promotional ephemera, poetry, and videos that bear witness against the industry's sanitized self-presentation. From government cover-ups and "sacrifice zones" to a grassroots Natural Heritage Group restoring a polluted river and preserving the oral histories of an aging community, her work helps to raise the question: when what we inherit is harm, what does it mean to preserve it—and who gets to tell that story? This question is also central to the latest episode of Living Culture, Making Heritage.
What does it mean to inherit harm? In this episode of the Living Heritage, Making Culture podcast, artist and Askeaton Contemporary Arts director Michele Horrigan sits down with Kate Huber and Stacey Copeland to discuss life beside Aughinish Alumina—Europe's largest bauxite refinery, now Russian-owned—and the toxic legacy it has left across County Limerick.
Horrigan's commitment and connection to the region give her unique insights into the local natural and cultural heritage and their histories. In the latest episode of Living Culture, Making Heritage, Horrigan discusses her motivation and process behind collecting and curating the Stigma Damages archive. As an ongoing project, Stigma Damages highlights regional heritage that is often overlooked in broader national conversations about what we preserve, pollute, and industrialize. Horrigan describes, for example, integrating the work of local poets, such as Michael D. Ryan, into her video installations. With current imagery of Europe's largest bauxite refinery appearing alongside poems about the region from decades ago, Horrigan uses art to forge critical discussions about how the past and present shape collective futures.
Through Stigma Damages, Horrigan has built a counter-archive of found objects, promotional ephemera, poetry, and videos that bear witness against the industry's sanitized self-presentation. From government cover-ups and "sacrifice zones" to a grassroots Natural Heritage Group restoring a polluted river and preserving the oral histories of an aging community, her work helps to raise the question: when what we inherit is harm, what does it mean to preserve it—and who gets to tell that story? This question is also central to the latest episode of Living Culture, Making Heritage.
