Literary Atlas art roadshow reaches its final destination

Artwork commissioned as part of the Literary Atlas project – which explores Wales’ geography, history and communities through English-language novels set in the country – is on display at the Senedd and Pierhead building in Cardiff Bay until 17 February 2020.

This is the final stop on a year-long, Wales-wide tour for the Cartographic Imaginaries exhibition which began in February 2019.

The exhibition is a collection of twelve pieces commissioned to represent each of the English-language novels which formed part of the original Literary Atlas project research.

Each artist was assigned a novel and asked to: “play with traditional notions of cartographic mapping, and to explore the possibilities of visually communicating the relations between page and place, as well as books and maps”. These were the artists and the novel they were matched with.

• John Abell - Revenant by Tristan Hughes (2008)
• Iwan Bala - Twenty Thousand Saints by Fflur Dafydd (2008)
• Valerie Coffin Price - The Rebecca Rioter by Amy Dillwyn (1880)
• Liz Lake - Shifts by Christopher Meredith (1988)
• Richard Monahan - Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcom Pryce (2009)
• George Sfougaras - The Hiding Place by Trezza Azzopardi (2000)
• Joni Smith - Mr Vogel by Lloyd Jones (2004)
• Amy Sterly - Pigeon by Alys Conran (2016)
• Locus - Sheepshagger by Niall Griffiths (2002)
• Rhian Thomas - Border Country by Raymond Williams (1960)
• Seán Vicary - The Owl Service by Alan Garner (1967)
• Cardiff University Student Project – Strike for a Kingdom by Menna Gallie (1959)

A launch event for the final leg of the exhibition, sponsored by Bethan Sayed AM, was held on Wednesday 15 January at the Pierhead building in Cardiff Bay.

During the event, Professor Jon Anderson from the School of Geography and Planning and Literary Atlas project introduced the research to the assembled guests. He explained how the researchers had created innovative digital maps of the relations between English-language works of Welsh literature and their unique Welsh settings. The tool allows users to follow each plotline of the original twelve novels geographically around Wales and the world, exploring every place that has shaped the stories and characters.

Artist Seán Vicary was also in attendance to introduce his film Sitelines, a response to the literary geography of Alan Garner's novel The Owl Service (1966).

Visit the Literary Atlas website to view the artwork and read each artists’ statement.