Coinciding with the 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landings, as part of our ongoing enquiry we were commissioned by the Skibbereen Arts Festival to develop a new artwork for Sign(s) of the Times billboard project in Skibbereen Town. Peggy Diggs writes: “Billboard art often instigates a process, a questioning, or an argument about an issue or value that often goes unquestioned or unresolved in the public mind”.

In this commission a billboard sized riddle was inserted into Skibbereen towns’ public space generating a different kind of dialogue between art and public. The billboard instigated a process, a questioning or highlighting of the inherent ability of the human body to tune in and to sense its environment at a deep level.

The public was challenged, over the course of one year ending in July 2020, to use divining rods to find the location of a buried cast bronze moon, hidden in a secret location in Skibbereen Town.

Divining is still widely practiced in West Cork today to locate reliable water supplies. Traditionally divining has also been used for finding lost objects, missing persons, minerals, diagnosing health conditions and orienting dwellings etc. While certain people have a particular gift for divining water, everyone has the potential to be able to divine.

Divining packs and instructions for use are available from the Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre.