from Miranda Whall - Wednesday August 1st 2012

Yesterday Claire, my wonderful intern, trusty support and friend throughout this residency, and I drove out to find Soar y Mynydd, it was every bit as wonderful as I had hoped! it has to be 'the place' for the 'hiraeth' performance; the choir, poem reading, recording etc.








Artists in Residence day out in North Wales..

Thank you Tim for a great day. He drove us to Newtown to Oriel Davies Gallery where we met with the curator Ruth Gooding who was absolutely lovely and very generous, both shows were really good; Bathing Beauties - hundreds of ingenious and beautifully crafted models for beach huts and Gimme Shelter by Antonia Dewhurst. Then onto Wrexham gallery where we met Steffan Jones - Hughes who again was just so welcoming and generous, they were in between shows so nothing to see but we had coffee, chips in paper cones and a good chat. Lastly up to Oriel Mostyn, unfortunately we hadn't got an arranged meeting but luckily and thanks to Riz we met and talked with Gwenno Angharad. After a very cold gin and tonic on the prom we drove home. Tim took us to the magical hidden Castell y Bere and then for a fantastic trout stew/soup at the pub by the lake, aside form midges it was the perfect ending to a really inspiring and enjoyable day.


Steffan Hughes - Jones at Oriel Wrexham and Castell y Bere






















The 'hiraeth' project was progressing wonderfully. Iwan Bala suggested I asked Twm Morys to be the poet, he said YES to my invitation to collaborate immediately - fantastic - I can't read his work because he doesn't have it translated but I'm choosing to trust word of mouth, recommendation, reactions to his name and his reputation, its very exciting.

I also approached the Aberystwyth Male Voice Choir who also said YES, they sang Myfannwy just for me - that was pretty special!






Artists in Residence day out in Cardiff!

Claire and I drove down separately so we could all stay for the Chapter opening, it was well worth it.

Riz, Vida and Tim visited Meg Anthony at Oriel Myrddyn in Camarthen, then we all met at the new G39 gallery space which was fantastic to see, Chris Brown kindly spoke with us for a long time, after a fantastic meal in a Turkish restaurant we went to Tactile Bosch to meet with my brother who was coincidently in town then onto Chapter for the P.V of a brilliant show.


















Once the presentation was out of the way and I'd emptied all my hard drives and desktops I was ready to get started..the idea developed pretty quickly thanks to conversations with Stuart Evans, Anna Evans and Claire Ward. I then spent lots of money on camera and sound equipment, about time - wow what a difference!

I started to invite participants to record their monologues on 'hiraeth', the response was fantastic, almost everyone said YES

An enormous thank you to them all, I've made 15 recordings so far, they are all absolutely beautiful, here are some of them:
















Only 31 days left before I have to leave my lovely 'pod'! I am so happy here I wish it could last forever!

The residency started with a week or so spent consolidating all the pieces of the 'Quests' I had so far for my own benefit and for the cinema presentations on the 14th June. Working late into the night with my footage was wonderful, with a few glasses of wine and darkness I was re - inspired me and re- connected with the project, ready for the next 15 months of 'questing'!


Presentation:














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http://mirandawhall.blogspot.co.uk/