April 2024

Visual Art South West invited me to write a feature to mark the ten year anniversary of UK government recognising Cornish as a national minority. Please find an excerpt below, and click on the image to link to the VASW website and read the full piece.

‘Celebrating Cornish Minority Status and Cultural identity is empowering and joyful, it is also a way to name responsibility. A request to England and the wider UK to hear, recognise and respect our story in the way that we tell it. And to Kernow, to own its relationship with the world not only as a colonised culture, acknowledging that our heritage of invention and influence supported exploitation and violence. It is essential that Kernow is outward facing, looking to make reparation and reconnection beyond our coastline, as peers with shared and vastly different experiences. By doing so we model another way to lead, be, create and care.’

Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow

My new work Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow showed in Redruth in October as part of the inaugural Flamm festival, in partnership with Art Night and as part of Counterpoint Arts’ Platforma 7 programme.

Photos of Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow at Flamm, Redruth, October 2023, by Nick Cooney.

Photos of Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow at Flamm, Redruth, October 2023, by Nick Cooney.

Photos of Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow at Flamm, Redruth, October 2023, by Nick Cooney.

Photos of Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow at Flamm, Redruth, October 2023, by Nick Cooney.

Photos of Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow at Flamm, Redruth, October 2023, by Nick Cooney.

Photos of Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow at Flamm, Redruth, October 2023, by Nick Cooney.

Photos of Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow at Flamm, Redruth, October 2023, by Nick Cooney.

I was one of four artists commissioned to make new work for Flamm, which also included work, performances and screenings by artists from across Cornwall. Gwyrdh Glas - Liwyow a Gernow, sits within my broader MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh project, and comprises of my first publicly exhibited film with a sculptural installation of rubbish sculpture rocks made during public workshops. You can find out more here.

For more information and documentation of the Flamm festival by Sam Bestwick and Nick Cooney, please head to the Flamm website.

imited edition poster to celeberate Gwyrdh Glas at Flamm, available via my shop

I produced this limited edition photo-collage poster to celebrate Gwyrdh Glas at Flamm, available via my shop

Catching Copper

Catching Copper, a short story by Sovay Berriman, 2023 written as part of MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh.

The Catching Copper book is riso printed and hand stitch bound by Amy Jemmett at Roots Press. An audio version of the story is available to listen to on the MESKLA Legacy page.

A limited edition riso print, edition of 50, of the Catching Copper drawing has also been made to accompany the publication.

To purchase your copy of print and publication please visit my shop.

Other news

Hospital Rooms

My work for Cove Ward at Longreach House is directly informed by the Liwyow a Gernow workshops that took place last summer in the run up to Flamm.

I've brought all of the conversations from those workshops into the making of this work. The energy, movement, imagination and experiences shared by participants; the favourites of the colours - deep blues and greens, warm yellows, pinks, reds and purples; and the shapes of the rocks we made reflected in cut-out panels that will be gilded in copper leaf to remind us of the minerals beneath our soil.

I'm looking forward to starting the install in May and seeing the work in situ. It has been a fascinating process to work with the Hospital Rooms team and both Cove and Fletcher wards at Redruth and Bodmin Hospitals. To consider the importance and sensitivity of the hospital setting, and all those who live and work on the wards.

I hope the installation painting will bring some of the wonder and joy of art making and of our land and sea scapes to Cove.

Working drawing for Hospital Rooms

Clore Fellowship

I am undertaking a secondment with National Theatre Scotland, based within the Creative Engagement Team, as part of my Visual Arts Clore Fellowship #Clore19 supported by a-n.

I am continuing to expand my thinking around creative leadership and evaluation through conversation and rubbish sculpture workshops with the staff team, using waste materials sourced at Rockvilla, the NTS rehearsal and office space.

During my time in Scotland I'm also looking at the potential for more creative approaches and processes to be brought more into practices and behaviours of governance and leadership. I am particularly considering how change can be embodied and, capacity and care managed, within busy schedules of multi-directional delivery.

I've been lucky to visit and meet with other arts organisations and independents including The Bothy Project, Deveron Projects, Glasgow Women's Library, and my fellow Clore 19 fellow, Rebecca Atkinson-Lord at An-tobar and Mull Theatre.

Rubbish Sculptures from NTS conversation workshops

MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh

(Mussel gathering | Precious Fragments)
A multi-platform expanded sculpture project exploring contemporary Cornish Cultural identity.

Sovay in MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh at Tate St Ives, May 2023. Photo credit: Steve Tanner

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