Flora residency at Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre and Footfall exhibition 15 January to 12 March 2016

This is part of the overall flora project organised by Oriel Davies, culminating in an exhibition in Aberystwyth Arts Centre 12 July to 17 Sept 2016

Llantarnam Loafers,  St Dials Slippers and  Blaenavon Boots

We physically engage with the land through our feet and the places we walk have echoes of past footfall

On my first visit to Cwmbran I noticed a sweet wrapper folded neatly and placed in the bush so that at first sight it seemed like a flower. This reflected ideas I was interested in exploring with this residency; our relationship with the natural world within the new town context and thinking about our conscious and unconscious daily interactions with the plants around us. During this residency I set out to find different habitats and unnoticed plant communities in and around Cwmbran.

I asked myself –

How do I embody a particular landscape habitat in a made object?
How do I express the historical layers inherent within a landscape?
What can I get done within the limited time?

I decided that I would make a series of ‘habitat footprints’ reflecting distinctive areas in and around Cwmbran. Habitat – The place or environment where a plant or animal naturally or normally lives and grows. Flora produced three interconnected publications for the whole project available from their website.