Dŵr yw Ein Tirwedd / Water is our Landscape
2024-25
Commissioned by Natur am Byth Arts Engagement Programme supported by The National Lottery Grant and the Arts Council of Wales
In October/November I worked with various different community groups (Year 11 Ysgol Eifionydd, Canolfan Felinfach and Morfa Nefyn Maritime Museum) to create a series of vessels and pennies out of wild clay gathered from the Pen Llŷn coastline.
When creating our pots we talked about our personal relationship towards water and the sea, how living near the coast has impacted and shaped us. The aim of the workshops was to engage with people and think about the relationship between terrestrial and marine and how their behaviours impact on water quality. The clay became vessels to hold our thoughts and words. At the end of the session, we made clay coins and imagined the sea as a huge holy well that could grant our wishes, enlivening past beliefs of water as a healing and magical resource.
I digitally scanned the pots as an alternative way of preserving the objects. Later, I took all the pots and placed them around Ffynnon Fair in Uwchmynydd. This is a well which gazes out at Bardsey Island, the last one the pilgrims drank from before making the treacherous crossing. It's a crystalline pool where lands turns into the sea and where fresh water meets the salt. The 70 + vessels gathered round the well as a kind of ceremonial offering.
Accompanying the archive of these pots are conversations with a woman who was baptised with the well water, a water dowser and a well hopper, exploring the sacred belief systems around water. Being unfired, the vessels returned to the sea with the weather and the changing tide.
When creating our pots we talked about our personal relationship towards water and the sea, how living near the coast has impacted and shaped us. The aim of the workshops was to engage with people and think about the relationship between terrestrial and marine and how their behaviours impact on water quality. The clay became vessels to hold our thoughts and words. At the end of the session, we made clay coins and imagined the sea as a huge holy well that could grant our wishes, enlivening past beliefs of water as a healing and magical resource.
I digitally scanned the pots as an alternative way of preserving the objects. Later, I took all the pots and placed them around Ffynnon Fair in Uwchmynydd. This is a well which gazes out at Bardsey Island, the last one the pilgrims drank from before making the treacherous crossing. It's a crystalline pool where lands turns into the sea and where fresh water meets the salt. The 70 + vessels gathered round the well as a kind of ceremonial offering.
Accompanying the archive of these pots are conversations with a woman who was baptised with the well water, a water dowser and a well hopper, exploring the sacred belief systems around water. Being unfired, the vessels returned to the sea with the weather and the changing tide.
