After an open day walking through the site and listening to where it had been and where it was to go I proposed to Landmark that I explore the fractures that cut through the buildings. To me the fractures were the visceral signs of change: the often overlooked but violent marks of dissolution. Conservation and restoration as a project can appear to work contrary to this, filling in the fissures and bring back together what has fallen apart. I wanted to bring the fractures in to focus, to record them before they were resealed, and to reflect on the mutability of Llwyn Celyn. I wanted to have and to create a momentary pause: to sense the fragility of what seemed intense and present, before it moved on.
In realising this idea I decided to light up the fractures, to bring the overlooked marks of dissolution and what was recessed and hidden in to the foreground.
Art is never produced in isolation and as the ideas grew I came to work with and alongside photographer and fellow artist William Carter, installing lights in between the splintered stones. Poet Fiona Hamilton accompanied us over a few days. All three of us had strong but different connections with Wales and all of us wanted to listen and to observe carefully as well as respectfully and sensitively. From the original idea grew not just images of the light lines, but other images of the framed vistas. Then came the poems and later the idea of an event at Llwyn Celyn. Fiona’s poems weave gently through the constellation that is this now extended project, the imagined and real histories of this place and the personal and collective emotions evoked. Whilst the fractures will disappear and the event will pass we wanted to see them in print, to conserve another brief moment in Llwyn Celyn’s history, and this brought about the further drawings for the book.
Jamie Lake April, 2016