Waggle Dance by Remco de Fouw & Rachel Joynt, Iontas Building, Maynooth University.
Waggle Dance by Remco de Fouw & Rachel Joynt was recently installed adjacent to the Iontas Building, at the main plaza at Maynooth University.
The Iontas Building, designed by Scott Tallon Walker, acts as a hub for the campus in general. The activities in the building include the NCG engaged in Geo-computational Data mapping and an Foras Feasa, engaged in the digital archiving of historic Irish culture.
The sculpture references these activities and aims to embody the creativity and intellectual endeavour behind the activity of the university through the geometry, complexity and ecology associated with the beehive.
The 3-meter diameter sculpture entitled Waggle Dance, is made from curved plate bronze perforated by various size holes revealing an internal stainless steel, cellular substructure.
For more on Rachel Joynt see our feature by Lisa Godson in Irish Arts Review Spring 2010.
fabulous piece really authoritative and appropriate to its setting
What is interesting to me, when I researched the origin of the term “Waggle Dance”, which suggests something whimsical and could almost be an invented name; I found a waggle dance is the incredible dance performed bees inside the beehive. With compass-like precision this figure-of-eight dance describes to fellow worker bees the exact location of flowers or even new nest sites. In the spirit of sharing knowledge for the betterment of the group as a whole, Waggle Dance is a sophisticated (and beautiful) piece and appropriate for Maynooth University – a hive of learning!