Across 2024 we’ve been supporting the eight Wales-based artists participating in the Future Wales Fellowship, working in partnership with the Arts Council of Wales, Natural Resources Wales, the Elan Valley Trust and National Trust. The Fellowship supports artists to develop research exploring the complex relationship between humans, nature, place and climate.  


RESIDENTIAL 1 – March 2024  

In February we gathered for the very first residential, meeting at National Trust’s Stackpole site in Pembrokeshire. We met and walked with ecologists, rangers and curators, and we heard from each Future Wales Fellowship artist – Manon Awst, Cheryl Beer, Zillah Bowes, Eric Lesdema, Alison Neighbour, Simmy Singh, Julia Thomas and Iestyn Tyne - as they began thinking, imagining, researching and making.  

In this update, we’re sharing with you the starting points of each artist, and we’ll delve more into each artist’s practice in the coming months.  


RESIDENTIAL 2 – June 2024 

Our second residential was held in the Elan Valley in Powys in June, where we explored the site and learnt about Peat in Penglaneinion and about farming within the context of conservation. We welcomed guest facilitators to share their practices and create a space for the fellows to reflect and expand their threads of knowledge.  

Writer Dylan Huw led a session on shared and collective experiences of “inbetweenness” – of language, work, identity and beyond – to prompt a different kind of exchange of practice and thinking.  

Rachel Solnick convened our second day together, taking us through her own and each other’s Land Stories drawing on identity, belonging and rootedness in relation to land. Each artist was also invited to listen deeply to nature and our surroundings in the Elan Valley before then bringing individual creative work together to make a collective composition. 


RESIDENTIAL 3 – October 2024 

With a beautiful backdrop of autumnal colours, colder air, leaves under foot and crashing waves, we returned to Stackpole in Pembrokeshire for our final residential in early October. 

Following an initial session with facilitator Jên Angharad for holding a safe and brave space, our focus for this residential was back on the artists, providing each with a space to share their research and practice with each other through a creative session, walk or activity, and discussion. 

  • We participated in Cheryl Beer’s Artist Research Trail – Sonic Nature: Sensing the Garden of Wales https://www.cherylbeer.com/sonic-nature.html; 
  • Eric Lesdema shared his latest works and research with us, informed through discussion with a range of thinkers and collaborators, exploring questions around cyfoeth, wellbeing, and the collective imagination. 
  • Julia Thomas took us to the Walled Garden for an In my Nature workshop exploring language, storytelling and narratives. 
  • Manon Awst https://manonawst.com shared her work with us through a performance - presentation she’s been developing to share ‘Peaty Patterns’. 
  • Iestyn Tyne https://www.iestyntyne.cymru shared his latest work and held a conversation exploring his own and the other fellows’ approaches to making concepts and art accessible to different audiences. 
  • Alison Neighbour https://alisonneighbourdesign.com/about/  led us on a wet and windy silent walk to the sea, exploring edges, where the land meets the sea, the sea meets the sky and day meets the night. 
  • Our final day started with Zillah Bowes setting an invitation to have an exchange with nature and recording this in some way – through drawing or mark-making, music or writing.
  • Simmy Singh https://www.simmysingh.co.uk took us through Autumn and Spring, sharing songs to sing together and provided a moment for the fellows to reflect on what can be let go and what seeds have been sown to take with them on the next chapter of the Future Wales Fellowship. 

The Future Wales Fellowship is part of the Creative Nature Programme between Natural Resources Wales and Arts Council of Wales. The programme aims to cultivate the relationship between the arts and the natural environment, as part of a shared commitment to improve the environmental and cultural well-being of Wales. This iteration of the Future Wales Fellowship is being delivered in partnership with the Elan Valley Trust, National Trust and Peak Cymru.