Highlights

Making Merrie, 2024 - 2025 by Lewis Prosser

Making Merrie is a new performance project exploring the material culture of folk theatre. Inspired by 19th Century mummers' plays and masked traditions along the Wales/England border, Making Merrie combines craft, performance, and language to reflect on cultural heritage and exchange.

Mummers' plays are traditional folk performances with roots over 500 years old, often tied to Christmas and New Year. Full of humour and spontaneous revelry, these plays were staged in streets, homes, or pubs by amateur troupes, telling simple stories of combat, death, and miraculous revival. Unlike the religious Mystery Plays, mummers' plays are secular, carnivalesque, and performed for community fun and were at their most popular in the late 1800's.

The project features large-scale wicker costumes, handcrafted using regional willow basketry techniques, highlighting basketry as an essential human skill.

Scripts blend Welsh and English in a garbled nonsense dialect, combined with improvised movement and carnival procession. Unrehearsed and set within communities, the performances invite spontaneity, joy, and humour.

Originally from Bristol and now based in Cardiff (via Glasgow), Prosser uses this work to reflect on his journey across the UK, observing how craft and performance connect people with the landscape. Through Making Merrie, he treats linguistic and geographic borders as spaces for dynamic cultural exchange, fostering a deeper sense of identity.

Performers:

Beth Greenhalgh, Bethan Cooper, Clare Parry-Jones, Fay Burnett, Jo Munton, Johnny Jones, Katrina Cobain, Tim Martin-Jones

Composer:

‘Prynhawn Da!’ composed for Making Merrie by Max Syed Tollan

Live Musicians:

Darren Edens, David Grubb, The South Wales Improvisors [Jon Ruddick, Martin Chitty, Chris Parfit, Jake Griffin]

Funded by:

Arts Council of Wales, Oriel Davies, Chapter Arts, Oriel Mission, and Galeri Caernarfon

Image Credit: David Sinden

South Beach Designsheet, 2024 by Tim Pugh

South Beach Designsheet is mixed media drawing of ideas relating to the process of  the creation of beach installations.I often sketch out ideas to accompany the construction of artworks which documents my thought processes related to the process.The drawing helps me to envisage different creative scenarios and helps me to evolve  and develop my ideas.I like to use different media whilst compiling the designsheet including the use of maps, photographs and text.

30 x 42cm

Revolution, 2024 - 2025 by Alana Lake

Stained Glass

70 x 70cm

Rhythm & Motion, 2024 by Caroline Jane Harris

Hand-cut Awagami Kozo paper, hand-dyed with pigment through press-brushing onto specially grained wood, unframed

64 x 97cm