For some time now I have been feeling the itch to get back into making and being creative, rather than focussing on producing. The perfect opportunity arose as part of the 2024 Wye Valley River Festival, as one of their Creative Community Champions Katie Hanning was looking to assemble an interdisciplinary team of artists to explore collaboration, co-creation and connection. I was chosen as part of the team, alongside Ella Davies and Guy Undrill. We all brought different practices and backgrounds, but a shared interest in co-creation, nature and community.
Initially, we developed a weekend of ‘walkshops’ – creative activities out in the beautiful natural surroundings of the Wye Valley around Redbrook. Over the course of the weekend participants were invited to explore their connection to each other and the Earth through movement, drawing, photography, filmmaking, poetry, singing and sculpture (with local foraged clay). Many beautiful moments happened over the course of the weekend, from joyful laughter to spontaneous Morris dancing!
Take a look at the process via our co-created project documentation film, conceived and edited by Guy.
Through the festival network we also forged a relationship with local printmaker Nicola Goff of The Yard Print Studio, and co-developed a number of wraparound activities for the display of FABRIC, the incredible community-printed tablecloth inspired by our relationship with soil and designed as a space to hold conversations. Over the two weekends of the festival we attended events in Monmouth, Redbrook, Llandogo and Hereford offering interactive activities inspired by the cloth and the Earth Beneath our Feet. This included the Great Mud Pie Make-Off, the Soil Race (a fun and frantic exploration of the challenges to soil health, such as pollution, erosion and overdevelopment) and painting both the landscape and bodies with earth-based pigments.
Following the main project, we also conceived another day of muddy, worm-inspired creative activities to represent WVRF and the FABRIC tablecloth at Hellen’s Garden Festival in Much Marcle, Herefordshire.
