With/Gyda Simon Whitehead & Kirstie Simson
In this next iteration of Practicing Places, alongside collective studio practice we will spend time in the local Afon Cych and Dulais river catchment. Journeying upriver this time to explore the wider ecology of the valley and its mythical landscapes, we will immerse ourselves with the river’s course and its ecosystems. Learning ways to be in correspondence with its ongoing-ness, responding to its life forms and movements, we will lead practices and scores to support our bodied understanding of the river’s language and it’s changing behaviours. This fieldwork will fold back into the studio over the days of the workshop and will deeply inform our movements and creative processes. One afternoon an ecologist from west Wales Rivers Trust will lead an upstream walk-over of the river.
We will encourage and support participants to develop their own creative responses to the river in small groups, with possibilities to share these explorations back in the the studio.
Yn yr iteriad nesaf hwn o Lleoedd Ymarfer, ochr yn ochr ag ymarfer stiwdio ar y cyd byddwn yn treulio amser yn nalgylch afon lleol Afon Cych a Dulais. Wrth deithio i fyny’r afon y tro hwn i archwilio ecoleg ehangach y dyffryn a’i dirweddau chwedlonol, byddwn yn ymgolli yng nghwrs yr afon a’i hecosystemau. Gan ddysgu ffyrdd o gyfateb i’w pharhad, gan ymateb i’w ffurfiau bywyd a’i symudiadau, byddwn yn arwain arferion a sgoriau i gefnogi ein dealltwriaeth gorfforol o iaith yr afon a’i hymddygiad cyfnewidiol. Bydd y gwaith maes hwn yn plygu’n ôl i’r stiwdio dros ddyddiau’r gweithdy a bydd yn llywio ein symudiadau a’n prosesau creadigol yn ddwfn. Un prynhawn bydd ecolegydd o Ymddiriedolaeth Afonydd gorllewin Cymru yn arwain taith gerdded i fyny’r afon dros yr afon. Byddwn yn annog ac yn cefnogi cyfranogwyr i ddatblygu eu hymatebion creadigol eu hunain i’r afon mewn grwpiau bach, gyda phosibiliadau i rannu’r archwiliadau hyn yn ôl yn y stiwdio.
* Cost: £320
3 bursary places at £160 available to participants based in Wales /
3 lle bwrsariaeth am £160 ar gael i gyfranogwyr yng Nghymru.
There will also be a short mentoring retreat for 6 participants following the workshop, during the evening of 13th & daytime of 14th July. A chance to further develop ideas emerging from Upstream & your own practice in the company of a small peer group, with one to one time with Kirstie &/or Simon.
To book, for accommodation list & to express interest in the mentoring retreat contact Stirling: rstirlingsteward@gmail.com
This workshop is part of a larger 2-year project AFON, curated by Maynard Abercych. In this active research partnership with artists, movers, ecologists, activists, land owners and the local public we are listening to the ways that human life is interwoven and deeply co-dependent on our river systems. Here we consider what it is to make ‘kin’ with these watery bodies in these times.
Thanks to the Arts Council of Wales for supporting this project.
Diolch i Gyngor Celfyddydau Cymru am gefnogi’r prosiect hwn.