Current Jerwood Writer in Residence Dylan Huw, Live Work Fund artist Rhys Slade-Jones, and Jerwood Bursaries artist Fern Thomas have been announced as Future Wales Fellows alongside Kathryn Ashill, Angela Davies, Kirsti Davies, Durre Shahwar, and Heledd Wyn.
The Future Wales Fellowship is a new paid opportunity that uses art to look at the impact climate change has on everyday life. The Fellows will be given support and opportunities to develop their own artistic work, but also to challenge the way people think about climate change to encourage people to live a more sustainable lifestyle.
The artists will receive a grant of £25,000 and will be given the opportunity to take part in events with scientists and thinkers who are working to tackle climate change and promote more sustainable ways of living.
Natural Resources Wales and Arts Council of Wales are joint partners of the Fellowship. It is part of a wider programme of work linked to a Creative Nature Memorandum of Understanding to better understand how art and culture could play a beneficial role in engaging people in key issues such as the climate and nature emergencies.
The Fellowship will explore the impact climate change is having on the people of Wales focusing on the three main themes of Energy, Food and Transport.
Dylan Huw
Dylan Huw is a writer living in Cardiff. He works bilingually across criticism, fiction and collaborative projects, often to explore ideas around translation, queerness, ecology and collective practices. He is currently the Jerwood Arts Writer in Residence, and was awarded the 2020/1 Geraint George Scholarship. He works with Peak Cymru, currently to develop Pegwn, a dialogic artist-led programme exploring language futures in Wales. Dylan has recently written texts for Flash Art International, O’r Pedwar Gwynt, MOSTYN, Dortmunder Kunstverein, Artes Mundi and National Museum Wales, and he has a monthly column on Welsh-language arts on the internet in Barn. With Elin Meredydd and Esyllt Angharad Lewis, he also co-runs mwnwgl, commissioning experimental writing and artists’ projects for print. He was raised in Llanfihangel Genau’r Glyn, Ceredigion, and has an MA (funded by the James Pantyfedwen Foundation) from the Visual Cultures department of Goldsmiths, University of London.
Rhys Slade-Jones
Rhys Slade-Jones is a queer artist hailing from south Wales. They make work that is fun, silly and full of heart. Walking the line between the convivial, and the confrontational, Rhys makes political work straddling the worlds of cabaret, performance and craft. They are recipient of the COMMON Award, Jerwood Live Work Fund and have made work with National Theatre Wales, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, BBC, & The Pleasance. Scream It From The Hills is a year long exploration of community, history and economics located in the Old Age Hall in Treherbert. Supporting local people to question what global systems they are a part of, and empowering them to create work in response to the global shifts in climate.
Fern Thomas
Fern Thomas’ works can take the form of sound, object, live action, song and the spoken word and creative processes can include conjuring imagined encounters with dead animals and the founding of fictional lands and time travelling research units. Ritual, mythmaking, folk magic and folklore form part of Fern’s research, exploring archetypal images, pedagogical spaces and inner landscapes, creating works rooted in flora, fauna and place. Recent research has addressed the Phenomenology of Motherhood, with an emphasis on natural rhythms, moments of daily transitions, and ‘Women’s labour’.
Find Out More
Find out more about the Fellowship here.
Find out more about the Future Wales Fellows here.
