Sownd [ar safle]

Sownd [ar safle] is an invitation to get stuck in to wet and unsteady ground.

Sownd [ar safle] is a sticky terrain: a submersion into the storied matter of time.

Sownd [ar safle] is a structure, for producing bodily connection with Welsh lineages of “liveness.”

Sownd [ar safle] / Sownd [on site] is a sequence of three site-specific live events in Wales, presented as part of Sownd, a project for the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The programme is taking place on peatland sites across Wales, and is organised by artists Manon Awst and Dylan Huw in collaboration with Sownd’s curatorial team and invited artists.

6.6.26: Cors Bodeilio, Môn [Free tickets available online from 15.5.26]

11.7.26: Cors Caron, Ceredigion

12.9.26: Cors Crymlyn, Abertawe/Swansea

Sownd [ar safle] invites artists and audiences in Wales to sink deeper into Sownd’s themes and materials. For both the Venice exhibition and the site-specific programmes in Wales, Manon Awst and Dylan Huw have drawn on research in Welsh peatlands: sticky and unstable environments, that both conceal and reveal vast scales of material history. These sites, layered with organic matter and cultural memory, become a terrain from which the artists navigate sedimented histories of language, culture, and ecology. The collaboration between Awst and Huw invites connections between disciplines and across borders, informed by Wales’ celebrated history of site-specific collective practice and its oral poetic tradition.

Each event will feature a performative presentation by Manon Awst and Dylan Huw alongside newly commissioned live work responding to the particularity of its site by leading Wales-based artists.