‘There’ is a rectangle of ground in the Garw Valley in the centre of the South Wales coalfield, six miles north of the market town of Bridgend, nestled between the two valleys of Maesteg and Ogmore. I went to school in the Ogmore Valley next to a working colliery, neither of which exist today.
Returning to the valley in 2021 without a plan, I found that my body already knew how to respond, and over time, to communicate the intimate, interwoven feelings of past and present. Today my practice is fundamentally embodied and rooted in direct engagement with the already meaningful materials of this land – the earth, coal and rock. A visual diary of this on-going work can be seen below.
This project has been supported by Arts Council England and the Brigstow Institute (University of Bristol), enabling me to work with academic researchers to produce a public facing document
testimonies
