Manon Awst

Manon Awst is an artist based in Caernarfon, who makes sculptures and site-specific artworks woven with ecological narratives. Her interdisciplinary approach is moulded by her upbringing in north-west Wales and studies in Architecture (University of Cambridge) and Artistic Research (Royal College of Art, London).

The ways in which materials stick to and transform locations and communities is at the forefront of her creative research. Her rooted interest in geology and the deep structure of landscapes helps her forge new ways of working with sculptural materials, and her most recent work has focused on the ecological and cultural value of peatlands. 

Manon is a recent recipient of a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award and was part of Up Projects’ Public Art Practitioners Programme in 2022. Her work is part of the National Library of Wales, UK Government and Welsh Parliament collections, and she has long-term installations on the Wales Coast Path at Nant Gwrtheyrn and at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin.

Cheryl Beer

Working within fragile ecologies, internationally acclaimed Environmental Sound Artist, Cheryl Beer repurposes hearing aid & biomedical technology to compose music led by the vibrating biorhythms of the natural world. From her Song of the Trees symphony with the Rainforests of Wales to sound art created from scientific recordings of a killer whale in the melting ice caps of Antarctica, Cheryl is interested in the relationship between sound, well-being & the environment, evoking a quiet and yet deep activism by embodying a visceral sense of place.

'Cradled by nature, I made a conscious decision to move from a place of broken to one of healing, setting an intention to pay back the natural world through the reciprocity it teaches us. What began as a creative practice to nurture my sudden hearing loss, organically grew into an international campaign, empowering fragile ecologies and recognising our vulnerability as part of them.'     

Zillah Bowes

Zillah Bowes is a multi-disciplinary artist and filmmaker with a practice across film, photography, poetry, installation and sculpture. With a spiritual enquiry around climate change and biodiversity, her work often explores the relationship between the individual and the natural environment. 

Her work Green Dark won the British Journal of Photography International Photography Award and Museum Wales Purchase Prize in 2022. Her work Allowed won in the British Journal of Photography Edition 365 and International Photography Awards in 2021. Her film Allowed, using 3D-animated photographs, won the Jury’s Stellar Award at Thomas Edison Film Festival and Best Film at Focus WALES in 2022. 

Zillah has participated in programmes with Art School Plus, Cove Park, FLAMIN/Film London, g39, Hypha Studios and Jerwood Arts. Currently developing her debut feature film, her fiction short film Staying/Aros Mae won the Grand Jury Prize at Premiers Plans Angers and Special Mention at Encounters Film Festival in 2021.  

Eric Lesdema

Eric Pascal Lesdema is a visual artist and pedagogue. His work is distributed by DACS Artimage. His moving image and photography work has been shown and exhibited widely at festivals and institutions including DokumentART; Video-Archaeology; Format, Derby; ICA; Standpoint; MKG; Towner; Blue Sky, Oregon; CAS, Osaka; Margate Contemporary; Lux, London. In 2021 Intellect published the UN Nikon Award winning series Fortunes of War: Photography in Alter Space, edited by Alfredo Cramerotti.

He is currently working with members of Academi Gymraeg, Prifysgol Caerdydd. Recent projects include Calling with Criw Celf South Central and Pontio Cenedl with young cultural activists from Blaenau Ffestiniog, Aberdare, Rhondda and South Cardiff. He explores and chronicles the use of temporality in art and the logical consequences of this ideology.

Alison Neighbour

Alison is an artist & scenographer. Her site responsive practice grows organically from the place and community each work is made with and for, and she is interested in time, impermanence, and the co-building of ritual. 

Alison’s practice began in theatre, and has since expanded beyond traditional performance environments to the reframing of spaces for performance and social engagement that explore the connections between people, place, and time. In all of her work, the audience themselves become participants, and are integral to the scenography and wider dramaturgy. Her work has appeared on stages from Blackwood to London, New York and Singapore, as well as on beaches from Glamorgan to the Sundarbans; in historic houses, and within the deep time of the chalk cliffs. 

Alison is also a resident at Pervasive Media Studio; co-creator of Carbon Literacy Training for theatre designers; and Associate Lecturer in Scenography at Central St Martins.

Simmy Singh

Simmy Singh is an Earth Activist violinist and composer from Wales whose mission is to use the profound power of music to help reconnect people to themselves, each other and the natural world. Through her music, Simmy is slowly finding a sound that incorporates all the music that has influenced her. She believes wholeheartedly that reconnecting to nature is key to saving ourselves and this planet, and is dedicated to using her music, as well as all the projects she is a part of, to help this. She is a thriving freelance violinist and leader and endeavours to use her leading positions as a force for positive change and action. She is Creative Associate at Sinfonia Cymru and recently appeared on Sky Arts directing the orchestra in a bold re-imagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with percussionist, Delia Stevens. Here they reworked this iconic piece to make it more relevant to the seasons we experience today. She enjoys spending as much time in Mary, her van, as possible, playing and singing around fires, and connecting to others and Mother Earth.

Julia Thomas

Julia Thomas is a director and dramaturg from Llanelli, specialising in new writing, family theatre and artist development. She founded Canoe Theatre, developing a touring model for dementia friendly bilingual theatre and has created work across the UK. Julia was Resident Director at The National Theatre Studio, RTYDS Resident Director at Curve Leicester, Associate Director at National Theatre Wales and Artist Development and New Work Producer at Curve. Julia is a member of the Director’s Lab at the Lincoln Center Theater New York, and was supported by Wales Arts International to participate in the Making Theatre in a Time of Change Lab collaborating with creatives from over 60 countries. Julia is committed to enhancing and improving possibilities for participation in the arts interrogating this through language, meaning and feeling. Her work explores community, happiness and the value of culture-led regeneration, intrinsically linked to relationships with nature and future thinking.

Iestyn Tyne

Iestyn Tyne grew up in Llŷn but now lives and works in Caernarfon. He is a writer, musician, translator and artist. His recent volumes include Dysgu Nofio (Cyhoeddiadau’r Stamp, 2023), Unspecified Spaces (Broken Sleep Books, 2023), and Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales (Repeater Books, 2022), co-edited with Darren Chetty, Grug Muse and Hanan Issa. In all his work, he explores ideas about space, belonging and community. In Cofrodd (2021), he created a sound map based on a week’s pilgrimage on foot from his home in Caernarfon to his birthplace in Bardsey Island, taking inspiration from the landscape, the people and the ecology along the way. In Llif (2023), the beginnings of the project he hopes to expand for this Fellowship, he considers the movement of generations of people over one small plot of land, which is closely based on the community of his upbringing in Boduan, Llŷn.