Adeg rhyfedd
Adeg anodd
Adeg MEWNrhwng
Review of MEWNrhwng @Oriel CARN
Review of MEWNrhwng
by Amy Briscoe
MEWNrhwng is an intimate, multidisciplinary exhibition at Oriel CARN in Caernarfon, led by Najia Bagi, Jenny Cashmore, Rebecca F. Hardy, and Gemma Lowe. A collective of innovative artists based across Wales and England. MEWNrhwng is a fusion of mewn “inside” and rhwng “between'' in the Welsh language. The exhibition was born at a time of great uncertainty and internal contemplation during the pandemic. Fragility seeps out of every piece. Universal threads of human experience come through in each work.
The origins of the MEWNrhwng exhibition began as meetings across the digital space and viewers can learn more about the development of MEWNrhwng on its social media channels. MEWNrhwng’s tour began at CARN gallery, based in the castle walls of Caernarfon and has now taken root in Elysium Gallery, Swansea, for its second life.
The exhibition takes on wild forms. Bold artist statements coming through at every turn. The artists cover many topics from breastfeeding, broken hearts, self-contemplation to mental health. They explore work in our domestic spaces through many artistic forms across digital and physical exhibition spaces. The choice of choral music is an aspect I enjoyed, adding a haunting and distinctly female dimension to the video art created for the exhibition.
Gemma Lowe uses oils and acrylics on canvas to produce bold and dramatic paintings with a dream-like, lived-in element. I was instantly drawn to Imagined Mountains because the idea of exploration and being outdoors was an imaginary affair for most of us during the lockdown. Morning Light is a lovely portrait using strong acrylics and soft pink watercolour, evoking a feeling of child-like wonder.
Jenny Cashmore’s Not Much Room involves a printer set up at the height of a human mouth. Every day a daily visual text is printed from home, exploring the connection between home, technology and the gallery space. I felt like a magpie locating visual texts on window sills.
The videos of her home have a big brother element. They are videos of mundane life we take for granted, such as holding a cup. One of the most striking images in MEWNrhwng is Pan Moon, a 72-page printout of a remarkable time of motherhood and breastfeeding. A transition time when time loses track of light and dark. This work was an exquisite depiction of a universal experience of motherhood that I have not seen in a gallery space before.
Rebecca F Hardy, who is currently exhibiting in A Breath of Welsh Air, at 48h NK in Berlin, brings her bold sculptures and visual statements to MEWNrhwng. The brain sculpture in its various forms resonated with me. It is an exploration of fluctuating mental health over the lockdown period. Fractures uses a variety of mediums: photography; vinyl. It made me ponder my identity and whether we are all fractured in some way now. The brain sculpture made from a garden fence was inventive.
Najia Bagi weaves vulnerability into her work especially with the heart-breaking, I loved you, but you loved her. The textile is unravelling, the stitching unfinished evoking a feeling of a deep emotional loss. Another piece, Loved You set on gold vinyl reflects a steely determination to viewers. The spoken word poems read like a stream of consciousness describing moments while drawing you into a mysterious internal world of the unspoken.
An overwhelming sense of contemplation and state of being exudes out of every piece in MEWNrhwng. It made me feel like a voyeur, standing in their shadow, in the corner of the room, listening in on a private moment of self-talk. MEWNrhwng is a time capsule of raw human emotion and leaves you contemplating your journey during this transitional time as well as theirs.
Lansiad MEWNrhwng Launch - Oriel CARN
To launch the opening of the exhibition at Oriel CARN we decided to showcase our research videos and each give a reading of text we had written ourselves or had influenced our process. We were uncertain whether a physical exhibition to the public could occur but we are thankful that Oriel CARN is open Thursday to Saturday 10 - 3pm.
Realistically a opening event was not possible but we marked the occasion with our on-line launch event and toasted as a group with aperol spritz, wine and mugs of tea over What’s app.
Pwy a wyr be ddaw... / Rebecca F Hardy
MEWNrhwng is a hybrid of ‘mewn’ meaning in and ‘rhwng’ meaning between. Colliding them together to express the stages of contentment and emotional thralls. Us and them, here and now, present and future. The blurred lines between wellness and chaos.
I started this project knowing exactly what I wanted to visualise and the message I wanted to convey. Analysing the moments your brain is at rest and the stages of contentment. The pandemic took me to other narratives, how could one not be influences and changed during this time. Dealing with issues of anxiety, adolescence, mindfulness and environmental and political impacts.
Dismantling ideas into forms, materials, photographs and research videos. Connecting with the evening light and shadows dancing against the walls of my home, my shelter, my prison. Capturing the timeline of the day, weeks and months of the uncertainty we had all find ourselves in. In limbo, in the unknown, in the MEWNrhwng.
SUGNO - DISGYN - TROELLI - BODDI - SYRTHIO - ANADLU
The work is subtle, with interventions of shapes and forms to convey a narrative or emotion. Using domestic and mundane materials, photographs in square formats to match their social media presence. The changing of the light, vibrance of the colours, glowing only when the time of day light is at the right angle. External and internal images of everyday objects places side by side for observation. TOUCH, the longing of connection from within the walls you are confined in.
PYLU MEWN - FADE IN - PYLU ALLAN - FADE OUT - PYLU MEWN - FADE IN - PYLU ALLAN - FADE OUT
[Top images: artist own research artwork, Bottom images: photographs by Anna Higson]
Fideo Ymchwil Gweithredol Fersiwn 2 // Active Research Video V.2
Active Research Video V.2
Exploration
Crossovers
Transitions
Connections
Movement
Confinement
Overlay
Setback
Fade
Visual texts 2021 / Jenny Cashmore
My thoughts on pandemic collaboration so far - Gemma Lowe
A letter to my collaborators We are collaborating under strange conditions.
Watercolour pencil in sketchbook
Having spent a significant amount of time working on my ideas for collaboration in lockdown, out of lockdown and in lockdown again, I have watched their rapid rise and fall like snowflakes on a radiator.
I have done collaborations before. I have had to prepare to send work for exhibitions abroad having never been to the exhibition space before. I’ve collaborated with others across hundreds of miles and have travelled to spaces with the expectation to create site specific work, run events, and hang a show with other artists all within a week. But I have never been in a collaboration like MewnRhwng before. There are four of us in the group. I have never met Jenny or Najia in person. We have a certain level of expectation from our supporters. There is a certain artist contract to make tangible the ideas we put on paper and promised to share with a public. However, we have been in a pandemic lockdown. The rules of which have altered weekly. The conditions of which have determined our social behaviours and our boundaries.
Contents of mail
I had sent Becs some of my ideas in the post with fabrics and half-finished suggestive sketches. I think I startled her slightly because I’d forgotten to write a message to say they were from me. All mail etiquette was forgotten in the process and I had just wanted to send them as soon as possible to make tangible connection to her, and to the project.
“No message or return address!!...I was sooooo confused! Bx”
I had wanted to post several works to Jenny also, but after the recent changes to the lockdown rules and the tears over tiers, I decided to change my rules of how I was going to collaborate.
These thoughts had already been brewing under the surface after our ‘zoom rehearsal’. Jenny was hiding from the screen. Najia had some beautiful fabric that she swirled around the camera and along a line. That was my favourite part. It got my overdrive lockdown mind thinking, what is best*, hostile collaborations or amenable vacancy, playful voids, or suggestive speech?
*best for my creativity and working with and through my ideas in a collaborative manner.
I have been making drawings, as we discussed based on the messages and my response, drawing and connecting. I wish I could see you!
How can a meeting we had last year seem like such a special thing now? To be regarded as crucial to our wellbeing. To be regarded now as inappropriate and somewhat risky.
My days are saturated by time. Gelatinous and globular, wading through a familiar space with unfamiliar terrain. I don’t want to scream; I wish I did. I want to hide. No one wants to hear me. Why would they? When I look out onto the world, the globular glass pulls my image into 360-degree sharpness, my reflection is pulled and curved and upside down. Smile turns to frown and back again.
After I presented images on Instagram last week, I realised that my work has moved from inside the house, lonely anxious space to a venturing out into the world, the bus, anonymous masked faces, games being played, masked stone cut crinkles edge.
Ladies, collaborators, this collaboration we are involved with is a tool. We are creating a tool to use for future practices.
I Loved You But You Loved Her
I Loved You But You Loved Her
Najia Bagi
Covid-19 has given us so much time and filled that time with so much anxiety / crippled our ability to consume that we have (in my opinion) almost become mirror images of the extreme time-less and anxiously collecting beings we were before the pandemic. What are we supposed to collect now? Can we consume pandemic related anxiety? How much will it cost and do you take contactless?
My latest explorations as part of the MEWNRhwng collaboration have been inspired by Rebecca, Jen and Gemma’s work which creates beautiful spaces for reflection through light, text and physical movement. I have also been trying to create narratives that can live inside the mindful pockets of time that have been so precious to me in the past six months.
For me this weird spatial reality that we’ve been thrown into has triggered a need for me to make and send messages, to become in awe of those who choose to risk their lives in order to speak out against injustice, to imagine and uncover unsaid messages between lovers and friends, and to remember.
I have chosen to share here three pieces of research. I Loved You But You Loved Her is the most moving message I received when I put an open call out for unsaid messages that people wished had been spoken. I was moved to ask this question after noticing scrubbed graffiti on a local bridge - I wondered what was underneath but more than that I was struck by the beauty of what was left over. The smudge, the stroke of the cleaning products on the wood. I was here 2020.
I also felt indignant about the ability of certain times, situations and relationships to silence us. So took this message and used it to begin improvised speech, which unsurprisingly took a turn into remembering racism being directed towards me when I was younger. I have transcribed the speech into ticker tape running across the bottom of the screen. Only existing in movement, constantly moving. For me this treatment of the text is important because it reflects the improvised process of creating it and is also reminiscent of the translated words of a movie. Perhaps I’m trying to translate the past into a solid shape, and translate the unsaid message of another from the past into something which exists now.
I created a GIF with the words layered over various images and video of running water. The GIF has been uploaded online and so exists for someone who may search for the phrase or sentiment. Perhaps it’s lost there forever. But it exists. I like the way it moves quickly, like anxious thoughts.
The final image does not belong to me, but it forms part of my thinking. It is an image of Libyan women marching to protest to become part of the peace process after Gadaffi was killed and a new government was formed.
I continue to follow movement, and perhaps even more than ever, the moment before something.
Fideo Ymchwil Gweithredol. Fersiwn 1. // Active Research Video. Version 1.
MEWNrhwng has been utilising various platforms and methods to explore collaboration as a group since the project has started. During lockdown we have been using online platforms to communicate using messaging, and virtual meetups - enabling us to collaborate remotely. We have been exploring ways of sharing works in progress, our sketchbook ideas and thoughts via instagram @mewnrhwng. An active research video has manifested out of this desire to share our individual research with each other and draw on the content shared and communicated on online communication platforms. Likewise it is a way to explore the experience of collaborating remotely. It is called an active research video as we view it as just that - a platform for no pressure experimentation, a place to explore crossovers and connections.
Version 1 has previously been shared online as part of Symudwedd 1.0, a Gwyl Ffor Arall X CARN collaborations - Ffilmiau Celf Byr / Short Art Films. We plan to share future versions throughout the duration of the project.
The active research video is a collaboration between:
Najia Bagi, Jenny Cashmore, Rebecca F. Hardy and Gemma Lowe.
MEWNrhwng
‘MEWNrhwng’ is a multidisciplinary exhibition that presses on the notion of transition, the departures, and the crossing over of a physical, metaphorical and psychological state. It is the in-between moments of here or there, now or then, them or us, reflecting on the surroundings and connections of place, longing, grief and boundaries.
As a collaboration between four female artists Gemma Lowe (painter, based in Chester), Najia Bagi (musician/performer, based in Oxford), Jenny Cashmore (multidisciplinary artist, based on the English/Welsh border) and Rebecca F. Hardy (sculpture, installation, based in Bethesda), the exhibition will tour to various art spaces around Wales. Each artist’s work has similar undertones but diverse approaches to narratives and storytelling.
‘MEWNrhwng’ is an open-ended and organic collaboration that will transcend and grow over the period of the project between painting, playful installations, careful and thought out placements of sculptures and projections to live performance and participatory recordings and site-specific movements. This project will allow the artists to explore and test new boundaries within their practices and collaborate with each other and the wider community.
Working in the current climate of binary states (Brexit, Climate change, fake news and statuses on social media) to allow space for the in-between. It will address issues of belonging, transition, grief, boundaries, language, and cultural identity and provide opportunities for raising awareness and discussion in contemporary topics.
The experience will allow us to learn from each other's practices, make new work that crosses disciplinary boundaries, and develop new networks. Broadening these questions to the wider community both within the creative sphere and the general public.
The collaboration will be recorded through this blog and via the projects instagram account @mewnrhwng. The project has also successfully accepted a small production grant from the Art Council of Wales and the support of Oriel CARN, Caernarfon and Elysium Gallery, Swansea.
Gemma Lowe
Gemma Lowe (b. Manchester, U.K) studied MA Painting at Royal College of Art (2012-14) and BA (Hons) Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University (2002-5). She held her first solo show, Throwing Shapes at 84 Hatton Garden, London in 2015. In 2016, Gemma joined a group residency in Evia, Greece. The opportunity to develop her work and test ideas led to a group show entitled Duplicit at SNEHTA in Athens. Later in 2016, Gemma was invited to perform her work Without Roof or Rule publicly during the Art Licks Weekend, as part of Working from Home, AMP Gallery and most recently she held her second Solo exhibition, Small Talk, with Coleman Projects in London.
She exhibits and works on a range of collaborative projects internationally and has presented her work in formal settings and for higher education audiences. Her practice and research is an exploration of the production of meaning that occurs in everyday language. There is rich potential in the misheard and the misread. The way in which these occurrences are echoed in the instinctual mark making of painting can be an opportunity to create dialogue.
Gemma Lowe - Kin, 2017
Najia Bagi
Najia Bagi is an artist who likes to explore the spaces within us: longing, waiting, transition, pause, breathing. She uses rituals, gatherings, repetition and movement to connect herself and others to these spaces. Some of Najia's projects are participatory, which means that others join her to share their stories, and these shared moments provide comfort and the creative material which often forms a performance or installation. Najia completed an MA in Creative Practice at Goldsmiths College in 2018 where she gained a Distinction.
Najia has led projects across the UK and internationally, including a recent multi sensory installation at Modern Art Oxford as part of the University of Oxford's EMPRES performance evening. Najia also curates events, having recently brought together three women with Middle Eastern cultural heritage to explore how the in-between states of cultural identity can uniquely be explored through embodied movement.
Najia Bagi - Porth Galar Live Performance in collaboration with Rebecca F. Hardy (I’r Mor, CASTELL03 2018)
Jenny Cashmore
Jenny Cashmore is a contemporary, multi-disciplinary artist whose work manifests in various forms. This includes across and in-between, performance, actions, lens based mediums, and interventions. Her works and projects are often specific to context or site.
She is interested in exploring our sense of place and relationship to place. Exploring existing structures and paradigms relating to the construction of communities, our use of space, and way of life. She enjoys playing with and manipulating aspects of everyday life. She is interested in both animate and inanimate relationships within these contexts.
Cashmore’s past work and projects include Colours of Stoke produced by Appetite Stoke as part of the Big Feast (Stoke on Trent, 2019), a collaborative Earth Walk with Celia Johnson (Sidney Nolan Trust, Presteigne, Wales, 2018), Descent, performed in the Finnish Museum of Natural History (Helsinki, Finland, 2017), and Colours of Llandudno, produced by Culture Action Llandudno, as part of Llawn05 (Llandudno, Wales, 2017).
Past residencies include; East Bristol Contemporary (Online. 2018), UNIT(e), g39 (2016) and Summer Camp, National Theatre Wales, UK (2015).
Jenny Cashmore - Descent, live performance (Finnish Museum of Natural History 2017)
Rebecca F. Hardy
Rebecca’s current practice moves seamlessly between collage, sculpture, installations to photography. Relatively the artwork relates to the conduct of human nature, its behaviour to perform consciously and subconsciously and the complexity of emotions upon the individual and within society. It is the prolonged fascination with cataloguing artifacts, continuation of repetitive movements, the subtlety of objects and exploration of biology, psychology and visual exploration of human anatomy, domestic objects and every so often her own fluttering state of mind.
Her new body of work reflects and dictates on the current transparent mentality, readdressing our expectations and views on mental health and social stereotyping. Her sculptures and installations act as vessels and metaphors and co-exist with the repetitive motion and the space it temporarily consists in.
Rebecca has worked in collaboration with artists and educators on several creative projects across Wales, working within gallery, community engagement and educational settings. From Lead Creative School Projects to Ideas.People.Places to her own art practice Haus of Helfa Residency (2015), mom.mam.mum project ran by Culture Action Llandudno (2018), LLAWN07 (2019).
Rebecca F. Hardy - Afiach (Balaclafa Gallery, 2018)
