The residency took place in BBC Television Studios, Cardiff Bay, Wales, UK, on the set of the Welsh language drama series Pobol Y Cwm (English translation People of the Valley) in its 40th anniversary year, where the cast of 34 characters reside in the fictional village of Cwmderi.

The residency explored ways of enticing a fictional community to lend their creativity skills and imagination towards the making of a contemporary artwork(s). The proposed vision, at the start of the residency, was for the community to develop an artwork expressing thier collective spirit and identity. The ambition being to blur elements of fiction and reality with the creation of an artwork that could be sited in the fictive landscape, visible in the distance to Pobol y Cwm audiences in exterior scenes shot on set at the BBC Studios.

Olfactory Biography

The residency began with a playful activity that aimed to stimulate the actors’ to imaginatively explore thier characters’ childhood history, through their memories of smells. I recruited a science undergradate who made and sold aritsanal soaps at craft markets as my assistant in preparing a variety of organic materials to smell. Each actor/characters’ responses were documented to indentify each character’s three favourite smells, clues to the characters’ olfactory biography.  Twelve characters participated in the creation of their character soap.

Further playful experiments were undertaken in the studio which led to the decision by the characters to create a performance rather than a visual artwork, their idea was to create a contemporary folk dance experessive of thier community spirit at that moment in time.

The residency culminated in an installation Off-Set at the artist run G39 Gallery, Cardiff in Autumn 2014.  The installation consisted of a high finish replica of the Pobol Cwm furnished green room where actors spent time socialising prior to performing. Artworks made by the fictional characters and recording of some of the activities that the characters participated in were on display in the Off-Set Green Room. 

Off-set installation G39 Gallery Cardiff 2014