Mynydd Epynt (Collaboration with Moira Gavin)
2007, 5’ 26” Video.
Sennybridge Army Training Camp, Wales.
Mynydd Epynt is a place where a community were evicted in the 1940’s so the army could occupy the land.
This place didn’t feel like a landscape that you could relate in any of the usual ways. Instead it felt overburdened by layers of different histories and stories written on it, in particular anger and loss. We discovered the human in the landscape. One of the key moments for us took place on the first night where we met some farmers in a pub; the conversation with the farmers gave us a different perspective on the place and highlighted in a very direct way the powerful emotional legacy of dispossession.
During the course of the weekend we also explored the base at night, came into contact with the soldiers at the camp, observed their activities and photographed their living quarters.
We wanted to find a way of combining the different stories into one piece of work. In the film we encounter emptiness through - the markings and inscriptions on the land, by filming the deserted base at night, by including sounds from the past and present.
Film Stills :
(click to enlarge)
