ARTSCAPE goes live this October and November, engaging Powys communities across Mid Wales to connect with their environment through a series of highly imaginative creative arts experiences.
ARTSCAPE’s physical and virtual programme will spark creative climate conversation and action for all ages, and will take place in three locations in Powys – Brecon, Llandrindod Wells and Hafren Forest, near Llanidloes. It is timed to coincide with the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop26) in Glasgow from 31 October – 12 November 2021.
See overview below. To find out more about the programme follow @ArtscapePowys on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and visit www.artscape.wales.
ARTSCAPE is a creative partnership between Powys County Council’s arts and cultural service, National Resources Wales, Impelo, 4Pi Productions and Articulture. ARTSCAPE is funded by Arwain, the LEADER Programme in Powys, Arts Council of Wales and Powys County Council.
In Brecon, ARTSCAPE brings creative practitioners to work with families, to consider the impact of Climate Change on Island Fields – a local area rich in biodiversity but under threat from flooding. Artists include Charlie Ward, a comic and poet, who looks for the funny side to the Climate Emergency and Matt Cook, the sound artist, who creates multi-layered recordings in Island Fields with a group of young producers. The Brecknock Arts Collective use arts, crafts and movement to find ways we can connect with Island Fields – and the positive potential that has for our wellbeing.
Workshops and events will take place at Y Gaer and Theatr Brycheiniog during Half Term and the Cop26 fortnight in early November. The new art produced will then be exhibited throughout November.
In Llandrindod Wells ARTSCAPE brings creative practitioners to work with the local community to consider the impact of the climate crisis on our wellbeing, places and spaces. Using conversation and guided movement sessions, they work with the local community to respond to the area around Llandrindod Lake, leading to a performance.
Led by Artists Fin Jordao, a transnational creative biologist and writer; Marla King, a Welsh dance artist and climate justice activist and Clara Rust, a Welsh dancer and collaborator, the public are invited to take part in a series of exploratory events and performances on the 23rd, 25th, 31st October and 13th November, around Llandrindod Lake, with the meeting point being the Amphitheatre.
Hafren Forest will be brought alive with spectacle, workshops and forest adventures as part of ARTSCAPE on the weekend of 6th and 7th November. PuppetSoup will present ‘Puppetry of the Woods’ – including community puppet making workshops around Llanidloes, and create a trail of puppet stages for the public to use in the Hafren Forest. Public are also invited to upload puppet performances on the topics of climate change and the forest.
Composer Camilla Saunders will work with the Dancer Jenni Barbieri to create ‘Hidden Connections’ – a sound installation and dance performance weaving together sounds captured from Hafren Forest, storytelling and the voices of pupils from local schools. Artist Billie Ireland, inspired by carbon capture (the forest holds on to carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere where it can cause harm), will make a symbolic piece of artwork and bury carbon treasures, with live work in progress, plus talks and a live bio char demonstration with Tony Davies though out the weekend.
Image – Brecknock Arts Collective
