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Archaeology Arts Film Outcomes Reports

Linda Norris ‘Fragment Dresser’

Artist

Linda Norris
‘Fragment Dresser’

Linda is a painter and glass artist based in Pembrokeshire and was commissioned alongside three other Welsh and Irish artists to create new work that spoke to the following themes:

  • Personal or collective pilgrimage or journeying
  • Sacred Places
  • Celtic diaspora, ancestral heritage and a longing for home
  • Creative Storytelling that connects North Pembrokeshire and North Wexford

Linda’s work centred around the idea of pottery sherds found in most people’s gardens that tell a story of domestic life and ordinary people.  Her initial proposal was to get people to send her found sherds with a ///what3words location tag and a story associated with them, however, as she began work it transpired that within the Republic of Ireland, these are considered archaeological artefacts and it would be illegal to do so. Instead, Linda started working with Welsh poet, Emma Baines, to run a series of in-person and online creative writing workshops to which participants brought along found sherds and responded with poetry and prose.

 

“Thank you so much for an incredibly fruitful set of workshops. The poetry we wrote is given a new fragility and dimension by your artwork.” Ali McGuire, workshop participant, Ireland.

 

The handwritten poems were then directly incorporated into Linda’s artwork, the Fragment Dresser. This exceptionally beautiful piece used glass combined with light projection to exploit the relationships between transparency and opacity achievable by sandblasting clear glass.

A video of Linda making the artwork:

Linday chose the dresser as it is an iconic piece of furniture central to domestic life in both Ireland and Wales. It is passed down through generations and is evocative of ideas about ‘home’ and ‘family’. The dresser is a repository for memory and shared experience and is also an item of cultural display.

 

A video of the final artwork:

Several offshoots of the project have emerged, including:

  • Bards ‘n Shards – a piece commissioned by Narberth Museum, creating ceramic pieces responding o the writing that took place in the creative writing workshops with Emma Baines
  • Shards Jewellery – making jewellery from found shards
  • Soil Collection – from archaeological sites to use in forthcoming work
  • Limpets – gilded 1000 year old limpet shells from the St Patricks Chapel archaeological site, excavated and discarded as part of the archaeological dig commissioned by Ancient Connections.

 

You can download Linda’s full report on her Ancient Connections residency below:

Click here to get in touch with Linda or to find out more about her work. 

Categories
Archive Opportunity

History Hunters

Opportunity

History Hunters

Ever fancied delving into your family or local history? Can you imagine yourself as a historic super sleuth unearthing long lost nuggets of history from the dust of ancient archives? Might you enjoy researching, writing and publishing blogs and articles about your region’s archaeology or mythology or are you ready to unleash the slumbering storyteller within? If so, Ancient Connections’ History Hunters programme is for you.

Tell Local Stories

The aim is to support curious individuals and those with an interest in their local history and stories, to develop skills and be mentored to dig effectively into their community’s past, and share what they find. No previous experience is necessary and it’s a lot of fun. History Hunters will form local groups and networks to support each other and share information with support and mentoring from the Ancient Connections team.

A suite of four, free modules of training have been developed to equip participants with all they need to know about collecting, recording and sharing a treasure trove of history and stories from their square mile. Training includes how to collect and record oral history, how to search online and published archive sources for Wales and Ireland, how to share and publish research in the form of articles and blogs, and how to tell these stories.

 

Contractor Delivering Programme:

Become a History Hunter
Research and share stories.
To apply to become a History Hunter please complete the form below and a member of our team will be in contact with you.
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Date: January 2020

Funded By: Ancient Connections

Project Outputs:
History Hunter’s Training Packs
History Hunter’s Training Programme
History Hunter’s Mentoring
Press Releases & Articles
Social Media

Learn More at:
www.ancientconnections.net/history-hunters