MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh
(Mussel Gathering | Precious Fragments)
A MULTI-PLATFORM PROJECT ABOUT CONTEMPORARY CORNISH CULTURE
MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh (Mussel Gathering | Precious Fragments) is a multi-platform art work that uses sculpture and conversation to explore contemporary Cornish cultural identity & its relationship with heritage, land, and extraction industries, including tourism and mining. Views on and experiences of contemporary Cornish cultural identity are sought, through sculpture workshops, podcasts, symposia, public talks, and exhibitions.
I am Cornish and care passionately about Cornish identity and culture, but I want to find out what others in Cornwall think & feel about this too. I developed MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh to specifically do this.
Cornwall is a National Minority, a Celtic nation with an indigenous language, and historic networks that reach out to sea, but how does this relate to the contemporary identity of people who live and work here now. MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh has grown out of my experiences as a Cornish person and my previous work that has spoken about contemporary Cornish experience. In the early 1990s I co-founded Pennskol Kernow the campaign for a university in Cornwall, at that time I was also working with a group of fellow young women to set-up Truro Young Women’s Centre, a project aimed at supporting women between the ages of 16 & 23 who were experiencing homelessness. Through this work I was able to take part in the first Racial Equality Council conference at Cornwall County Hall to listen and think more expansively about cultural identity around the UK and globally.
The first year of MESKLA was supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Funding was also gratefully received from Redruth Unlimited, further generous support to help realise the project is given by Liam Jolly of Auction House, Ellie Allen of Splann, Jowdy Davey & Lowender Peran, Falmouth University Falmouth Campus, Kresen Kernow, Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek, Gorsedh Kernow, Cornwall Neighbourhoods for Change, Kath Buckler, Alice Mahoney & CMR, ButCH/*, and Cornwall Council Cornish Language Office.
