Apparently the “heart stopping thrills” of North Wales make it the 4th best place to visit in the world in 2017 (see the feature in Lonely Planet).  Llongyfarchiadau to the locally-driven ‘active’ tourist industry, located in quarry towns like Blaenau Ffestiniog and Bethesda. It’s bizarrely thrilling to have them listed alongside Choquequirao, Tarinaki and the Azores. But the attention has a downside too, feeding articles like this one in the Telegraph, assessing the area in terms of its investment potential (“too far from London…But … enough properties … to catch the eye of canny investors”).

These differences in attitude are very much my mind this month while working (with the support of Amgueddfa Lechi Cymru) on an Arts Council Wales-funded Research and Development project called “Merched Chwarel” (Quarry Women) with four other (female) artists. Together we are exploring 5 different quarries, highlighting and questioning the contemporary relevance of the relationship between women and the quarry legacy.....