Crossed Paths: Sheep: Wales

The field- work for this project was carried out in the Cambrian mountain, West Wales during the summer and autumn of 2017. An Arts Council Wales Creative Professional Grant to the value of £25,000 has funded the project. The project included 8 commissioned musical compositions, one commissioned poet Dr Zoe Skoulding from Bangor University and one commissioned writer Dr Phil Smith from Exeter University, a comissioned photographer Hannah Mann, a commissioned documentary Film - Woolly Maggot by Fforest Films. The project was developed with Alex Boyd Jones curator of Oriel Davies Gallery and scientific partners Pwllpeiran Pwllpeiran Upland Research Platform IBERS, Abersytwyth University.

As a moving cyborg sheep/human I have crawled incrementally along 5 ½ miles of land managed by the Pwllpiran Research Centre in the Cambrian Mountains, West Wales wearing a sheep fleece and 14 Go Pro cameras- I have collected, assimilated and will present a de- centered and enactive perspective that will enable and contribute to a discussion on this particular mountain landscape and a wider discussion on mountain ecosystems; environment and culture. This arts – practice project aims to communicate pertinent environmental issues facing this particular landscape from within and beyond the arts, humanities and sciences.

Through this project I am exploring the following questions; Can I develop a ‘non’ or ‘more – than’ - representational approach to mountain landscape through this materialist, corporeal and performative method? Can I present research that prioritizes the empirical and the experiential, and so explore the landscape as embodied experience? Can responses and interpretations of the same landscapes by myself and 8 musical collaborators create a new dynamic relationship between this landscape, film and music? Can I explore our need to develop a more ethical and more complex relationship to our environment and to our relationship to non-human others: animals, plants and technology simultaneously through this project?.

An interdisciplinary practice - as –research, multi platform project that engages with film, music, performance; the body in motion and mountain and upland ecology. The outcome of this project will be a multi -screen video and audio exhibition, accompanied by a contextual exhibition, publication, public -programme and documentary film.

All project material relating to Crossed Paths – Wales can be viewed under the drop down menu Crossed Paths on my website –

http://www.mirandawhall.space/?page_id=2242

Woolly Maggot can be viewed on Vimeo -

https://vimeo.com/263207913