CYMYLAU TYSTION/ CLOUDS OF WITNESS
(Working title only)
Brief project outline
SYNOPSIS:
A four-week creative collaboration based at MoMA Cymru, Machynlleth, between two multidisciplinary, native-speaking artists, one from Ireland and one from Wales: February – March 2014
A two week reflection and creation period on Ynys Enlli, off Pen Llŷn: May 2014
A four-week exhibition in the Tannery Gallery, Machynlleth: September 2014
Art reflecting and enriching language and culture in the Dyfi Valley
Close involvement with the valley’s farming community
PROCESS:
Creative collaboration is one of the most valuable skills and experiences in the world, but in the arts
world – as elsewhere – collaboration is all too often a buzzword and an attempt at branding, and not
a central point of practice and aspiration. This project will take place across four weeks in Spring
2014 and be built around the shared experiences and individual perceptions of two young, female,
native-language speaking multi-disciplinary artists; Ciara O Flynn from Dingle in the West of Ireland
and Naomi Heath from Llanafan in west Wales. A vital element in the collaboration is conversations
they will develop and time they will share with members of the farming community in the Dyfi
valley, out of which the finished work will emerge in a tender, respectful way. Another essential
element in the collaboration will be the interest, support and space already offered by MoMA Cymru
at Y Tabernacl, Machynlleth, and the careful, committed curation offered by Ruth Lambert there.
Finally, the Ynys Enlli Trust has also kindly offered studio space and accommodation for a two-week
reflection and production period on the island, in the period immediately following the residency in
Y Tabernacl.
Listening, empathising and reflecting will be essential elements in this undertaking, which will
explore and reinforce the sense of place, community and pride in language which are vital
ingredients in our culture, a culture in which language is art, and art language. The artists and Y
Tabernacl are determined that the rural community, and especially the participants, will build with
them a secure sense of shared ownership, and be welcomed, respected and rewarded both during
the life of the project and during the month-long exhibition in MoMA’s newTannery Gallery which
will follow in September 2014.
Both artists work across traditional disciplines and art-forms, and their areas of interest and
expertise include:
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Photography
Film
Music and sounds
Performance
Charcoal and pencil drawing
Mapping
Installations
Found and given objects.
These creative skills are no more important in the development of this work than those of
communication, understanding and sharing – and also the organisational capacities essential in
making spaces in which conversations, exchanges and confidences can emerge and grow naturally.
The same powers of care and organisation will also be essential as a collection of art with a very high
emotional and cultural value to the many stakeholders involved is built up at minimal financial cost.
The community-based work will concentrate on developing relations across demographic and
gender distinctions, within a “milltir sgwar” (square mile – the traditional rural Welsh expression for
one’s community space and sense of belonging), a restricted geographical area housing a varied but
homogeneous community. As the two artists develop their exploration, trying to understand, trying
to represent and trying to recreate, they will be “exploring what we think we know, and relating that
to what is.”
Using loved objects lent or donated by participants, stories told and recollections shared, the two
artists with explore with others their creative possibilities as well as using them in their own
practice. Stories and objects from older generations will be shared with children from Ysgol Gynradd
Machynlleth and elsewhere, as a stimulus for cross-demographic understanding and dialogue. The
then embellished, developed mythology – culture and identity renewing themselves naturally and
effortlessly – will offer both children and adults an opportunity to take a different kind of ownership
of this art, and become more aware how powerful are their own capacities for creation.
Relationships will be enhanced that are natural, personal and deeply rooted in place, language and
culture, in direct contrast to the cultural impacts of mass communication and the impersonal
mainstream entertainment model. The empowerment of curiosity, natural empathy, and free
critical thinking among all those associated with it will be a major aim of the project, as communities
like ours cannot emulate the globalised, impersonal, exploitative model of communication without
inevitably failing themselves.
The process of this project will be as important as the exhibition which can be seen as its eventual
product. That product will also be a complex one, in which the space kindly given by Y Tabernacl and
conscientiously used by the artists will be returned to the community. The exhibition stewards will
be drawn from the valley’s Young Farmers’ clubs; tea, cakes and beer will be served and shared as
appropriate; performances of music, dance and story-telling will be hosted; and materials will be
provided enabling visitors to comment on, and add creatively to, the work on show. We hope that
this pattern of work will be replicated and further developed in future by different artists, at Sabhal
Mor Ostaig in Skye and Dingle in the west of Ireland.