Visual Artist Martha Orbach worked on the Barbastelle Bat residency project in collaboration with the Vincent Wildlife Trust (VWT) in Pembrokeshire.
The aim of this residency was to shift perceptions of dead, decaying, and damaged matter from something that should be cleared away, to highlighting its potential to create habitats that fuel and sustain life, particularly for the Barbastelle Bat.
Here's what Martha had to say about her work with Natur am Byth:
During my residency I focused on homemaking, precarity, and interspecies connection - co-creating two collective homemaking rituals in Pengelli, and a series of animated attempts at shelter.
I collaborated with artist Rowan O’Neill and Kinora Wellbeing Centre - we packed firewood, drinking water and tea, spent time listening to the forest, thinking about how we are at at home in our environment, creating stop motion animations, and becoming familiars of the forest.
The messy, old growth ecosystem, with dead, decaying habitat that the Barbastelle favour is often tidied or cleared away, and while creating this work we considered the generative power of mess, debris, and natural cycles of rest and regeneration.
Dod yn ol at fy nghoed/Coming back to my trees/Coming back to my senses
A short film concerned with how we weave ourselves back into our environment and make a home with the wild. A tangle with the possibility of return and re-integration.
Rhwng dau olau/Between two lights
A collaborative performance film documenting a gathering of singers, including Teifi Valley Improvisation, at dusk in Pengelli as they orientate themselves in sound amidst the forest.
Created in collaboration with Rowan O’Neill, Kinora Wellbeing Centre - Alfor, Clodagh, Dai, Darren, Erik, Heather, Ian, Kira, Michael, Neville, Paul, Sharon, Seren, Titus, Jacob Whittaker, Hannah Rounding, Gary Yeomans, Tracey Styles, Coppicewood College, Teifi Valley Vocal Improvisation - singers Ailsa Richardson, Emily Anwen Mills, Emma Orbach, Helen Wagner, Ian Devereux, Jo Linney, Joy Minton, Martha Orbach, Rowan O’Neill, Sarah Wright, Yusef Samari.
With thanks to Nathan Walton and the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales, Elinor Gwynn and all who live inhabit Pengelli.