Gwenllian Spink, Y Fenni Community Feast Commission
Peak partnered with Abergavenny Food Festival and The Angel Bakery for this year’s Abergavenny Community Feast, which took place in the town’s Market Hall on 14th May 2023. We commissioned an original artwork by the artist and gardener Gwenllian Spink to respond to the Feast’s theme of ‘The Kitchen Garden,’ celebrating the joys of local produce. Gwenllian, with whom we previously collaborated on last year’s Pegwn and Platfform Haf programmes, responded to the brief by looking to oral histories of folk remedies embodied in Welsh-speaking communities. She created 300 drinking coasters on Snowdonia slate, adorned with intricate drawings of herbs and vegetables, which were designed for all the Feast’s attendees to take home with them.
We also present a new text by writer and Peak Associate, Dylan Huw, which introduces Gwenllian’s work and some of the research and dialogue behind it.
Roedd rhinwedd neilltuol yn perthyn i law mis Mai ac, yn arbennig, i law cyntaf Mai.
May rainfall, and May’s first in particular, has been known to possess all kinds of medicinal properties: to improve eyesight, to clean bruises, to kill cattle lice. Gwenllian Spink, an artist and gardener living in Nant Ffrancon, has taken inspiration from these and other Welsh folk remedies for an edition produced especially for today’s community feast. The commission, on Snowdonia slate, is informed by Anne Elizabeth Williams’ Meddyginiaethau Gwerin Cymru, which maps just some of these largely unrecorded salves, which are micro-locally rooted and intertwined with Welsh-language oral inheritances. For back pain, boil rhubarb root or a blackcurrant branch; if you have a cold, sleep with garlic in a sock and allow it to work its magic. Gwenllian’s gentle translation of some of these remedies onto slate asks that we consider not just where our produce comes from but what kinds of lineages of community knowledge it might contain. It asks too that we pay respect to embodied histories that evolve outside the strictures of dominant cultures—and that we enjoy the meal.
Gweithiodd Peak gyda Gŵyl Fwyd y Fenni a becws yr Angel eleni ar Wledd Gymunedol y Fenni, a ddigwyddodd yn Neuadd Farchnad y dref ym mis Mai am y tro cyntaf. Gwahoddom yr artist-arddwr Gwenllian Spink, a fuodd yn rhan o raglenni Pegwn a Platfform Haf llynedd, i greu gwaith celf gwreiddiol byddai’n ymateb at thema’r Wledd, ‘Y Gegin-Ardd,’ a dathlu cyfoeth cynnyrch lleol. Ymatebodd Gwenllian wrth edrych at hanesion llafar o feddyginiaethau gwerin mewn cymunedau Cymraeg. Crëodd [how many?] o fatiau diod ar lechi Eryri, â darluniadau cywrain o lysiau a pherlysiau arnynt, i bawb yn y Wledd gael cymryd adref.
Ochr-yn-ochr â chomisiwn Gwenllian mae ysgrif byr gan y sgwennwr Dylan Huw, sy’n un o gymdeithion Peak, i gyflwyno’r gwaith a’r ymchwil a’r ddeialog tu ôl iddo.
Roedd rhinwedd neilltuol yn perthyn i law mis Mai ac, yn arbennig, i law cyntaf Mai.
Gwyddwn i ddim tan yn ddiweddar bod rhai’n credu bod gan law cyntaf Mai bŵer unigryw i olchi briwiau, gwella llygaid gwan a lladd llau gwartheg. Ar achlysur gwledd heddiw (yn ogystal â glaw Mai, a dyfodiad yr Haf), mae Peak wedi comisiynu gwaith newydd gan yr artist-arddwr Gwenllian Spink. Trodd at ymchwil Anne Elizabeth Williams ar gredöau lleol Cymreig am rinweddau meddygyniaethol llysiau a pherlysiau, sydd wedi’u gwreiddio mewn ardaloedd penodol o Gymru a thraddodiadau llafar Cymraeg. Berwch wreiddiau riwbob neu gangen cyrans duon i wella poen cefn; cysgwch gyda garlleg mewn hosan i ddod dros annwyd. Mae cyfieithiad Gwenllian o rai o’r rhwymedi at lechen yn gofyn ein bod ni’n ystyried yr etifeddiaethau cymunedol a lleoliad-benodol mae pob darn o fwyd, a thir, yn cario. Mae’n gofyn hefyd ein bod ni’n talu teyrnged at ffurfiau ymgorfforedig o hanes, tu hwnt i ddiwylliant unffurf—a’n bod ni’n mwynhau’r pryd.
