I’m ushering in the New Year - the new decade (eek!) - with a new project - 2020: Sgwrs Dyffryn Peris Conversation - Dod o Hyd i Dir Cyffredin: Finding Common Ground.
It’s a project that has its roots back in the early 90s, and the tips of its branches hidden somewhere in the shifting clouds…. so hidden that they may or may not exist at all….
It is my most radical art project to date, in that some may struggle to see it is art at all! It has no intended outcomes, no funding, no requirements … nothing but the intention to have conversation about a place. Conversation - with others (human and otherwise) about Dyffryn Peris, the valley where we live, approached via its land and water within the context of the Anthropocene. To seek common ground. And see where we go, and what, if anything, comes of it.
I’ve started a new place on my website to explain a bit more about it:
If you - or anyone you know - might be interested in having a chat with me about this place, or contributing in any other way, I’d love you to get in touch!
Meanwhile, Blwyddyn Newydd Dda! All best wishes for the year - and decade - ahead.
And a quick note of deep thanks: I have been incredibly lucky to have had the support of educator, artist and researcher Iain Biggs, an extraordinarily personable, talented, generous and inspirational person, with whom I’ve been exchanging conversation and emails. As well as sharing his own thoughts, Iain has sign-posted me to his network of people doing and thinking and writing incredible things, that have made me feel I able able (as Donna Haraway ways) to ‘stay with the trouble’ …
This week, I invited two artist friends to look at my collection of objects and fragments that I’ve dug from the garden. I wanted to know whether others would find something in them, even though they haven’t ‘discovered’ them themselves in the same way, in the sense of digging them up, but in discovering them in my ‘collection’ in the barn. Inspired by Rebecca Solnit, this is what I found out...