Artist Manon Awst and curator Dylan Huw will represent Wales at the 61st Venice Biennale with a project titled "Sownd." The exhibition, located at the Istituto Santa Maria della Pietà, features a sculptural environment inspired by the peatlands of North Wales. Central to the installation is a wooden boardwalk that mirrors both the boggy terrain of the Welsh landscape and the flood-prone pathways of Venice, integrating material samples, oral poetic traditions, and the ancient Welsh craft of cynghanedd.
The project explores the precarity of cultural and geological foundations, specifically within the context of the Welsh language as a "minoritised" medium. By aligning with the Biennale’s overarching theme, "In Minor Keys," Awst and Huw aim to resist conventional temporalities and imperial linguistic hegemonies. Their work serves as a meditation on how ecological preservation and linguistic heritage intersect, offering a textural, slow-paced alternative to globalized cultural production.