In February 2107 we’ll be welcoming Jane Mason to 2 Penrhiw for a 10 day residency. Whilst deepen into articulating her own practice, she’ll also share time with members of the village as part of a connecting and making process.

Here are some of her early musings about the chance to be back in Abercych:

Thoughts on Abercych – 15 September, after talking to Stirling

 There was a distinct sense of community when I came to Abercych in 2015 to give some kind of performance/sharing of my work. I noticed in what must have been built up over many years, a vibrant atmosphere with great attention given to those present to absorb what was on offer in their own personal ways. A place where people seemed committed and open to talking to eachother, to understanding, thoughtful around what it might mean to talk about place, community, home, whilst listening, making space for questions and carefully finding ways to put the body into those conversations too. 

In my work with different communities I’ve become increasingly aware and perhaps more able to articulate what is important about this for me. It’s not an easy straightforward process to meet a person, someone I don’t have a relationship with already and gently find out about them, take them on some kind of a journey and invite them in different ways to trust in a process and to surrender to it. I often find that small interventions; shifting a physical instruction from a seated conversation to be on their feet, asking someone to reflect on a question from a different place in the room, asking someone to stop speaking but perhaps continue to tell me something about their relationship to the space physically – there are all kinds of ways to try and enter into a practical process with someone, which I hope aren’t glaring, formal and intimidating. I’m learning more how to describe what is important to me; explorations around form and structure, strategies up my sleeve to push something further, shape interactions in ways that are unique to me, to the encounter I’m in and not about simply reproducing known pathways.

It’s a very important part of my wider practice to be in dialogue with these kinds of situations/parameters. To ask questions about what it means to be in relationship to others and community through doing, in ways that are not linear, or previously defined, but making a space for something to happen, be shared, considered and perhaps experienced in unexpected ways by others witnessing. Risk is a part of that, in order for risk to exist there has to be safety, responsibility and care. I suppose this is what I’m always in some way working towards. Becoming surer of the value of these processes at the same time holding on to the need to keep letting go myself. I think it works because I am vulnerable too, I am not the expert and never pretend to be, I have to listen very hard and want to! so a set of modes are being activated, negotiated, and adapted from person to person, with the aim of awakening visibility on life, on ourselves, triggering imaginative and felt spaces to open up between people.