Course Leader

I have been the director of the Creative Arts course since its conception in 2014. The course and its core modules have transformed organically and strategically over the last 6 years to settle into their current, happy shape and form. I am honoured and privileged to lead such a diverse group of students through a unique and exciting degree scheme and one of the most important passages of their lives; witnessing the development of confident, self – assured, informed and engaged creative practitioners emergent and ready to take their place in the creative industry with a strong sense of identity and a plan..

My interdisciplinary practice has morphed and mutated over the last 30 years alongside my teaching practice, both informing and impacting the other as I have moved through various interconnected lines of enquiry, media and methodology. At the heart of both is an approach and attitude Rebecca Fortnum and Elizabeth Fisher coined as ‘thinking through making’ in their book On Not Knowing How Artists Think 2013. I am driven by curiosity fuelled and facilitated by ‘very serious play’. In my creative and teaching practice I allow hunches, coincidences, mistakes and accidents to guide me, alongside a vigilant and rigorous attentiveness to what presents itself along the way.

For the last 20 years my multiplicitous practice has been one of getting close and being with, of becoming a creature of the mud, the matter and the flesh of the world, an exploration of our need to develop a non – hierarchical, more ethical and more complex relationship to our environment and to our relationship to non – human others: plants, animals and technology simultaneously. Through a range of media I am exploring interspecies dynamics using a gentle, economical, conscious, meditative, transformative and socio- political practice.

Fi sy’n cyfarwyddo cwrs y Celfyddydau Creadigol ers ei gychwyn yn 2014. Mae’r cwrs a’i fodiwlau craidd wedi trawsnewid yn organig ac yn strategol dros y 6 blynedd ddiwethaf, ac maent wedi aeddfedu i’r graddau fel bod y darnau bellach wedi disgyn i’w lle’n daclus. Mae’n fraint ac yn anrhydedd cael arwain grŵp mor amrywiol o fyfyrwyr drwy gynllun gradd unigryw a chyffrous, a hynny yn ystod un o gyfnodau pwysicaf eu bywydau. Gallaf eu gweld yn datblygu’n ymarferwyr creadigol, hunanhyderus, gwybodus ac ymroddedig sy’n prysur wneud enw iddyn nhw eu hunain ac sy’n barod i hawlio’u lle yn y diwydiant creadigol gan wybod yn iawn pwy yr ydynt a beth yw eu bwriad.

Mae fy arferion rhyngddisgyblaethol wedi newid dros y 30 blynedd ddiwethaf ar y cyd â’m harferion dysgu. Mae’r arferion hyn wedi dylanwadu ac effeithio ar ei gilydd wrth imi symud drwy wahanol drywyddau ymchwil, cyfryngau a methodolegau rhyng-gysylltiedig. Wrth wraidd y ddeubeth hwn y mae dull ac agwedd a fathwyd gan Rebecca Fortnum ac Elizabeth Fisher a elwir yn ‘meddwl drwy wneuthur’ yn eu llyfr On Not Knowing How Artists Think 2013. Chwilfrydedd wedi’i danio a’i hwyluso gan ‘chwarae difrifol iawn’ yw’r hyn sy’n fy sbarduno. Yn rhan o’m harferion creadigol a dysgu, rwy’n caniatáu i chwiwiau, cyd-ddigwyddiadau, camgymeriadau a damweiniau fy arwain i, ac rwy’n talu sylw manwl a llwyr i’r hyn a ddaw i’m rhan ar hyd y ffordd. 

Dros yr 20 mlynedd ddiwethaf, mae dod yn agos at bethau, a bod gyda phethau, yn ganolog i’m harferion amlochrog. Maent yn ymwneud â dod yn un o greaduriaid mwd, sylwedd a chnawd y byd a darganfod mwy am ein hangen i ddatblygu perthynas fwy moesegol, cymhleth a di-hierarchaeth â’n hamgylchfyd ac â phethau eraill nad ydynt yn bobl: planhigion, anifeiliaid a thechnoleg ar yr un pryd. Trwy gyfrwng ystod o gyfryngau, rwy’n archwilio’r ddeinameg rhwng rhywogaethau gan ddefnyddio arferion caredig, economaidd, ymwybodol, myfyriol, trawsnewidiol a gwleidyddol-gymdeithasol.