Dyma ddiweddariadau ar ein gweithgareddau a'n cyfleoedd diweddaraf! Here are updates on our latest activities and opportunities!

Collaboratory Utopias Bach

Mae Cymuned Utopias Bach yn gymuned amrywiol, ddwyieithog ac yn dysgu trwy weithredoedd yn agored i bawb sydd gan ddiddordeb mewn Utopias Bach. Dan ni’n meddwl am hyn fel ‘planhigyn y fam fefus’, lle lle gallwn ddod at ein gilydd i rannu syniadau a gweithgareddau, gweithio trwy anhawsterau, cael ein hysbrydoli, dysgu pethau newydd.

The Utopias Bach Collaboratory is a diverse, bilingual, action-learning community open to all who are interested in Utopias Bach. We think of this as the ‘mother strawberry plant’, a place where we come together to share ideas and activities, work through any difficulties, get inspired, learn new things.

September Collaboratory Mis Medi: Caring for the Utopias Bach Ecosystem

Our September Collaboratory was a collaboration between Utopias Bach and Rewilding the Artist, considering how we maintain Utopias Bach as a healthy, balanced, functioning ecosystem for humans and more than humans. In exploring the possibilities of a creative approach to ‘policy’, the idea of creating some kind of Quilt emerged, working individually and collectively to embody our values and ways of working.

If you are interested in being involved the quilt, please email utopias bach

October Collaboratory Mis Hydref: Connecting Creative Practices

Our October Collaboratories are an opportunity to bring offerings from your own creative practice - or a Utopias Bach experiment - to the Utopias Bach community. It’s also an opportunity to get to know each other’s creative practices better.

Manylion/details:

18.10.23 - Collaboratory Zoom 11.00 - 12.30

21.10.23 - Collaboratory in the flesh. 11.00 - 13.30 Venue TBC (possibly Llandudno?)

Newyddion Arbrofion - Experiments’ News

• Cysylltu…Connecting This experiment, led by Ellen Davies is a community arts project weaving original conversations and poetry, music, movement, clay, paint and dance to create a new conversation, that goes beyond words: To feel a part of rather than apart from and thereby improving well being and mental health... We have run a series of workshops on the theme of SOUND YOUR VOICE - BE HEARD - RE-CONNECT - RECOVER and we are now working towards sharing the results as a public experience at Pontio 6pm 14th January 2024 (save the date!), together with a month-long exhibition. See more here

• Rewilding the artist: Breaking New Ground, is an experiment by Gaia Redgrave in “making the arts more accessible to disabled & neurodivergent artists & visitors through a Culture of Care & the Rewilding process”, and is partnered by Utopias Bach. Editions 1 and 2 of ‘The Journey’, the Rewilding the Artist newsletter are now available, including links and resources. If you’d like to join the mailing list please email Gaia.

• Y Siarter y Coed, created during our Ysgol Arbrofol Dod At Ein Coed Tree Sense Experimental School visited Gwyl Afon Ogwen in Bethesda last weekend as part of Celf yn y Coed. We explored reproductive justice for Trees, noticing, drawing, mapping and adopting seedlings, maidens and saplings growing in Coed Meurig as part of Lindsey Colbourne’s Corlan y Coed Treefold experiment.

• Grwp Barddoniaeth Utopias Bach Poetry Group. Ymunwch gyda ni am awr o farddoniaeth, wedi eu casglu gan aelodau Grwp Barddoniaeth Utopias Bach. An online reading group (at 4pm on the last friday of each month) that focuses on poems we feel relate to Utopias Bach's concerns in some way. We will take it in turn to circulate a poem (nothing too long!) and then meet online to discuss it. The group is currently collecting and discussing poems relating to birds. If you would like to take part, email Iain Biggs or see our events page

• Dysgu Cymraeg Utopias Bach. Mae grwp bach ohonon ni, sy isio ymarfer a dysgu Cymraeg are meeting dros zoom ar bore dydd gwener pob wythnos. There is no tutor, we are just dysgu together, and supporting each other to teimlo mwy hyderus to siarad Cymraeg. We you would like to take part, email Utopias Bach

Ysgol Arbrofol Dod At Ein Coed Experimental Tree Sense School

We have made a film of our 3 month residency at Pontio, Ysgol Arbrofol Dod At Ein Coed Tree Sense Experimental School. Wedi cael ei ddangos yn Y Lle Celf, Eisteddfod Genedlaethol ym mis Awst, the film is a great way to get a flavour of our experience if you didn’t take part, and a reminder if you did… We started to get all nostalgic about it.

Cofiwch! All the materials, invitations, prompts and results are still available for you to use in your own time, just go to At Ein Coed Introduction and follow the links that interest you.

With Y Ffilm Ysgol Arbrofol as a reminder, we held our ZOOM version of Forest Comes to Pontio as our July Collaboratory. The conversation is an insightful review of how it all went from the perspective of people very involved, involved at a distance, keeping an eye on what was happening and not involved at all. Watch the recording

If you’d like to add any other thoughts/reactions, including any thoughts on how to follow up the Ysgol Arbrofol, please come to our October Collaboratories or send an email.

Cyfleoedd eraill - Other opportunities

Call out for Utopias Bach artists participating in Celf Stryd Bangor 2024

This is a call out for local artists, musicians, performers from Utopias Bach to be part of a street art festival in Bangor next year (from Lucy F-M)!

Street art can be contested if it is not done by and for the given community, and Nuart festival in Aberdeen, one of the biggest street art festivals in the world, is a real inspiration here.  Nuart have an arrangement with the local council and Chamber of Commerce, who agree to cover the costs of the festival, and the works, which brings people, events, cheer and colour to the granite city.  The artists are a mix of local and international.  Bangor could be such a wonderful place for public art, given the number of boarded up buildings, and if the council and community might follow other festivals' lead.  This is a call to see if anyone would be interested in collaborating on this.  

An idea could be to depict local stories, myths, the Mabinogi, characters and folk lore, that communicate and support social justice, give access to law, and narrate peoples' rights in some way, through public art on the street. whatever people wish.  And have events, performances, etc, culminating in the summer 2024.  

It is also the 30 year anniversary of the Criminal Justice Act 1994 next year (very stringent anti-social behaviour legislation around land, housing rights) and it could be good to raise awareness of this too within the themes of the works and relating to local examples (perhaps through connection with land, nature, home, belonging, homelessness, etc.).  But these are all just ideas, and legal themed (given Lucy's background) and would be up to those participating as to what they would like to focus on.

Something similar is happening in Caernarfon (Canfas) but not quite the same with three locations as canvases, but not necessarily with a social theme, but it just shows that councils and communities are taking public art commissioned by local artists seriously.

There are currently some funding calls with a possible street art opera theme, amongst others.  There are already some street artists and storytellers on board that are from around the country, but it would only feel right to go ahead with the project if it is local North Welsh artist grassroots-based, and Welsh speaking too.

If anyone interested can get back to Lucy at info@theloreschool.org by Saturday 7th October just with an expression of interest and if you know of any other local artists or street artists who might be, that be wonderful! 

Diolch yn fawr iawn,

Luce

Volunteers needed to help ‘re-discover Map of Wales’ sculpture by Welsh artist Paul Davies 

People on and around Anglesey are invited to join volunteering events at the Llyn Alaw reservoir (Anglesey) in October and February, to help rediscover a huge sculpture (approx. 11x6 yd) by Beca artist Paul Davies (best known for his "Welsh Not"-performance at 1977 Eisteddfod).

The events emerge from a number of activities (with Utopis Bach involvement) and an ongoing collaboration between Welsh Water, Isle of Anglesey AONB, and Sarah Pogoda. Sarah is looking into Paul Davies’s work and the Llyn Alaw site in particular, as thanks to Utopias Bach has found multiple connections to the site.

In the last decade, the sculpture has been overgrown by bramble, gorse, and undergrowth. Owen Davies (AONB Community Warden at Anglesey Council) has been taking lead for clearing the sculpture from its overgrowth and organising the volunteering events for October this year and February 2024.

The first volunteering event will take place from October 13-15. Volunteers can be re-imbursed for their travel, but we will also arrange lifts to and from the site. Portable toilet and hand washing facility will be available. Bring your own lunch.

For further information on the volunteering events, please contact Owen Davies: aonb@ynysmon.gov.uk

For further information on the research relating the sculpture, please contact Sarah Pogoda: s.pogoda@bangor.ac.uk, 01248 382521

Oriel Brondanw Agored 2024

Galwad am Waith: Call for Work

Dyddiad cau/Closing date: 24/01/24

Thema arddangosfa Agored Plas Brondanw blwyddyn yma yw ‘Trawsffurfiad’. Mae croeso i chi ddehongli’r thema mewn unrhyw ffordd sy’n sbarduno eich dychymyg.

Rydym yn chwilio am waith gan artistiaid newydd a rhai mwy profiadol, ac rydym yn awyddus i arddangos amrywiaeth eang o wahanol ddulliau a syniadau. Mae’r arddangosfa agored yn un o uchafbwyntiau’r flwyddyn i Plas Brondanw. Am wybodaeth sut i gyflwyno eich gwaith, a’r gwobrau sy’n cael eu cynnig, ewch i: https://www.plasbrondanw.org/Agored-2024

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The theme and inspiration of this year's Open exhibition is 'Transformation'. You are welcome to interpret the theme in any way that sparks your imagination.

We are looking for work from new and more experienced artists, and we are keen to showcase a wide variety of different methods and ideas. The open exhibition is one of the highlights of the year for Plas Brondanw. For more information about submitting your work and the prizes that are on offer go to: https://www.plasbrondanw.org/Open-2024

Inspiration for this call out maybe found in our ‘guided imaginations’, including Trawsffurfiad… and in our invitations on the Ysgol Arbrofol Dod at Ein Coed Experimental Tree School pages.