EcoArcadia
EcoArcadia is a multi-carriage movement of different forms driven by a release of artistic expression in response to the climate emergency to heal, to strengthen our resilience to the chaos of climatic breakdown, to restore balance in our natural world.
All people are welcome to get involved: art, music, song, dance, lively debate, drama, the written word and poetry…..whatever it takes to get the climate emergency message over!
Rising Sea Levels on the West Coast of Wales
Poetry and story teller joins Geologist and Climate teacher as they combine the myths of the past with our current climate crisis of the present with local radio presenter Catherine Taylor … and John Mason – locally trained geologist, mineralogist and author communicates the science behind climate change and demonstrates using the geological evidence in Cardigan Bay together with local Welsh storyteller as we combine the myths of the past with our current climate crisis of the present.
The Making of Ynyslas arose out of one such situation in 2019. During the previous summer, John Mason, the author, worked there as a seasonal manager.
He noted two key things:
- there was very little on-site to explain how the place came into being
- it was clear that drastic climate change had played the key role in its formation
After the end of the season and a fairly exhaustive read of the peer-reviewed scientific literature, John got the key facts into place and the narrative was ready to be told: a tale of a landscape progressively drowned as great ice-sheets melted following the peak of the last glaciation. This flooding mostly took place over a 14,000 year period and the total amount of sea level rise was some 120 metres, so the famous Submerged Forest and peatland, at around 4,000-6,000 years old, represents its final act. Other older peatlands have been found offshore during drilling into the seabed, some underneath many metres of sediments.
That is evidence for Cardigan Bay once having been a fertile wooded plain, and science is all about evidence. The Making of Ynyslas appears to be an effective tool in the climate change communication toolbox. That’s because it shows things that have actually happened, the hard evidence for them woven into a dramatic tale. Indeed, it’s as dramatic as the legend of Cantre’r Gwaelod itself.
Given the post-glacial sea level rise was a worldwide phenomenon, there are many other places about which a similar tale may be told.
Current Climate Art
Tess Seymour – Time and Tide wait for None
Tess Emily Seymour is a documentary photographer, her last 3 years have been focused on producing lens-based and alternative process projects focused within communities in Wales, to achieve an intimate approach that reflects current global issues.
The title “Time and Tide wait for None” comes from the original saying “Time and Tide Wait for No Man” first appearing in “The Clerk’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Originally the saying had nothing to do with the sea. The saying was more of a reference of time, it referenced that human events or concerns cannot stop the passage of time or the movement of tides.
The word tide was originally referred to as a time, period or season. So in other words the saying means one should not waste their time and should be prepared for whatever is ahead of us.
To Tess the idiom represents the climate crisis in the present day, time is being wasted, and if we don’t take action, the tides will continue to come.
Previous Climate Art
Giles W Bennett – Digital light projection installation
Not Waving!
“Not Waving!” Is a new projection installation piece by local artist Giles W Bennett, created specially for this event at Eco Hub Aber.
Giles draws on his many years as an environmental educator and activist as well as using his unique neurodivergent eye to create this engaging installation looking at tide, time, movement and patterns within that space between The Sea and The Land (or The Prom as we know it here in Aberystwyth). As the tide is driven by the moon, the piece uses its silvery light to create a bond between the audience and the beauty, rhythms, and power of the sea.
We who live near the sea are all too aware of that power and it’s destructive capabilities.
We are also aware that these events are hitting our coastline more frequently and with more vigor. “Not Waving!” mixes the incredible beauty and awe of nature with a palpable foreboding.
Did you know we also have an artist in residence?
Megan Elinor Jones
Megan Elinor Jones, local illustrator/street artist has produced some amazing work for Eco Hub Aber. Megan was the ideal choice for us to collaborate with as her work centres around climate action, female empowerment, the natural world and Welsh culture, all the issues that fit in with our ethos. She loves to explore all forms of art using different media. Multi skilled with her iPad, no task is too much for Megan. In her unique vibrant style she has produced flyers and posters for our events to an incredible window mural for Saint David’s day window competition. She is currently helping us develop a climate action board game we are creating to ‘bring about’ day-to-day language for everyone on actions we can take part in locally to help keep climate change at bay.
These are some of the illustrations she has created for us and during holidays times she was one of our pop-up shops selling her prints, upcycled textiles and jewelry @meganelinorart
