Digging down

digging down is available tailored to your needs

We offer the Caban-style Digging Down event, in combination with or separate to the Curiously Collaborative Museum.
Perhaps some kind of travelling digging down caban, moving to different locations...

Background

Digging Down is a project inspired by found fragments and objects; the things we find and collect, but are not quite sure why. It started life when my (fairly) manageable ad hoc collecting of the fragments of pottery, glass and metal was disrupted by the discovery of three victorian 'middens' in our steeply terraced garden. Working with our dry stone wallers (Gerallt, Dei and Eifion), I found hundreds of old shoes, bottles, paint pots, children's toys, shoes, metal cots, marmalade jars, pans, seives, glass bowls and plates. As my horde of 'trysor' grew, I had started to feel a little like Fuselli's 'Artist Overwhelmed by the Grandeur of Antique Ruins'. We collected crates of the stuff, and I started to question when I should stop, noticing the almost compulsive need to get more, despite not knowing what to do with what I already had. 

Digging Down R&D with Waleslab (National Theatre Wales), 2015

I was lucky enough at at my point of overwhelm, Simon Coates, National Theatre Wales, rescued me by suggesting I applied to their Waleslab programme. This was a turning point, enabling me to embark on a programme of R&D, including performance and site-specific installation through collaboration with others. The questions I was trying to answer through this Waleslab funded R&D were:

- why am I compelled to gather these things?
- do others feel/do the same?
- what is the potential of these fragments and objects as a way of engaging with others, to dig down into the meaning of life, the universe and everything?

Waleslab supported my work by paying for two collaborators (Sam Frankie Fox and Chris. Dugrenier), a dramaturg (Louise Osborn),  a project manager/light and sound (Jony Easterby), and Gert Vos, our chef (Oren).  I tried to get my thoughts in order at the beginning of this collaboration see this Blog.

Over the next few months, I started inviting others to the barn, to explore the first two questions - why am I compelled to gather these things? And do others feel the same? Read about what I learned about my choices and what I learned about the significance of found objects. from other people’s choices

In my Blog about the importance of ‘outsider’ views, I explore where we’ve got to in the run up to our ‘sharing event’":

“What came through for me most strongly was the idea of all things being in a state of transition and change - through the process of entropy and senescence. That each of us is simply a 'caretaker' of the present - that we don't really have control over the past or the future - that we are biological beings and 'of nature' - but we surround ourselves in ephemera as an illusion of permanence.  Leaving our traces, our tracks, our legacy."

Digging down - the show, April 2015

The R&D resulted in hosting a caban-like 'sharing' event with an invited set of participants, (with light, music, debate, singing). We told the story of the women of Coed Gwydr, especially Ellen Williams, interspersed with a 7 course meal (each course inspired by fragments, created by Gert Vos) and conversation, writing thoughts on the table cloths as we went.

 One of the participants at the ‘sharing’ was Rhys Mwyn, and he wrote a Review in yr Herald Cymraeg, and i wrote a Blog about the Digging Down show

The way that we combined research, local history, song, performance, movement, documentation and conversation in Digging Down has given me indications of a new working practice, perhaps one that could be called 'dialogical art' or 'dialogical performance', where traditional boundaries between artist, performer, participant, audience are blurred, so that participation is at the heart of the creative event. This way of working brings in my background as a professional facilitator, as well as enabling me to explore site-specific work, installation and collaboration with others.

Pop up restaurants: Finding Found

After the NTW R&D phase, I ran three pop up restaurants with Gert Vos,

gwyl ffair nant, september 2015

and a stand at the local fair, Gwyl Ffair Nant at which we further explored people’s connection to found objects. Read about the experience here, including the object that was voted the most popular/evocative object…

Curiously collaborative museum of lost, found and broken, 2016

In April 2016, I put on Digging Down II at Storiel and Pontio in Bangor, a travelling 'Curiously Collaborative Museum of Lost, Found and Broken' working in collaboration with artist Marged Pendrell. The Curiously Collaborative Museum re-imagined the museum as a place for creative participatory collections and experiences of objects and personal stories. What would it look like to defy the expert-based model of collection and display, and replace it with soliciting contributions of 'worthless' lost and found objects, together with curation from the public? 

The museum offered:

•  A 3-suitcase starter collection , from pebbles and sticks to fragments of pottery and lost shoes,
discarded bedsteads and bit of old letters

•  An opportunity for you to bring along fragments or objects that you have found,
to add them to the museum (temporarily, or permanently).
You can try your hand at curating and making collections and displays in any way you like.

•  An invitation to respond to the fragments and objects on display
– writing, song, dance, sculpture, sound-scapes, drawings… in any medium you choose.

- café with panad and cake.

More than 100 people came, and feedback was very positive (see blog here), and Marged and I are keen to take it further.

merched chwarel

I have been further exploring themes from Digging Down in Merched Chwarel, along with Marged Pendrell, Lisa Hudson and Jwls Williams, and with workshops with Chris. Dugrenier and Sam Frankie Fox

This has included telling the story of the Women of Coed Gwydr, my home. A kind of ‘house geneology’, with unexpected consequences, insights and connections!…The story of Coed Gwydr