1996 - 2000
My first solo exhibition, it opened at The Royal Photographic Society in 1999 and toured to seven galleries across the UK and Europe. Copies of the catalogue, published by Wrexham Arts Centre, are available for £4.
Text from the Catalogue
In the early Sixties, amid much protest, the rural Welsh-speaking village of Capel Celyn, in North Wales, was submerged under the Tryweryn reservoir in order to supply the borough of Liverpool with water. The flooding was felt by many to be symbolic of the slow dilution of Welsh culture under a London Government. As a result, Welsh nationalism became more militant in fighting to re-establish its language and identity.
For The Liverpool Corporation, the modern demand for more water supplies, posed a geographical, rather than a nationalist, question. Despite many years of active protest against the bill, the reservoir was constructed. The community was re-housed, the village was demolished and cemented over. The whole valley was cleared to avoid debris entangling the dam's pumping system.
The displacement of the people of Capel Celyn was a seminal event in Welsh politics. It kindled a reaction of nationalism felt by the Welsh community as the strength of feeling against the flooding gained momentum. Militaristic nationalist organisations such as ' The Free Wales Army' and later, 'Meibion Glyndwr' retaliated by burning houses owned by English people as second homes and bombing the reservoir's pipe lines running from Wales to England. These incidents polarised an already difficult relationship between Wales and England.
As the events were retold and played out in the Welsh media, a very romanticised image of this small, Welsh-speaking, rural community, epitomising the very 'Welshness' of the nation grew. The political conflict over the flooding of the valley transcended into history and modern folklore, and Tryweryn became part of a wider national consciousness.
The 19th century Picturesque tradition of landscape painting, particularly in North Wales, provided a romantic concept of nature and fostered the notion of a 'rural idyll' in places such as Capel Celyn. These early landscapes were isolated from cultural and social content, themes widely regarded as suitable for the depiction of the city, not the countryside. In the wake of events at Tryweryn, it is no longer possible to maintain the idea of a ubiquitous natural landscape, capable of being viewed purely aesthetically. The historical, political and cultural implications of the topography of Tryweryn are unavoidable.
In this exhibition, the empty landscape - often a criterion for Picturesque representation of the countryside - becomes culturally and politically charged. The images explore the semiotic nature of the landscape using incidental fragments and visual triggers metaphorically, forcing the past to the surface of the present. The images become iconic of a polarised history shared between two entwined cultures.
Tryweryn presents a landscape of loss, and of defeat, it is not a celebrated space, like the tourist havens of Snowdonia. These images of Tryweryn and its surrounding area, penetrate deeper than their ambiguous surface appearance. Now that most evidence of Capel Celyn has vanished, these images explore the symbolic currency of history itself. They examine the environment in a forensic manner, aiming to question the traditions of the Picturesque landscape and replace it with political and cultural scrutiny, a 20th century version of the Sublime.