Sarah recording Rachel Lambert
This Summer Storylines were invited to collect memories and reflections about Mounts Bay to feed a series of podcasts to accompany Gwelen, a new artwork by award winning artist Emma Smith and residents of West Penwith.
Having been born in Penzance and brought up in Mounts Bay, Storylines Sarah in particular, was excited to have an opportunity to delve even deeper into a place already close to her heart. Here are her own reflections on this special place.
“When I reflect back over my lifetime, I realise that Mounts Bay was the backdrop to so many memories. From travelling by bus to school in Penzance, night-time swimming off battery rocks, gathering bruises whilst sailing off Marazion, exploring smuggling caves with a torch and the dog, getting married amongst the early daffodils and spending many hours in all winds and weathers walking the coastline.”
After hearing about the concept behind Emma’s artwork, which is inspired by Cornwall’s largest submerged forest that sits in the bay, we were eager to uncover different perspectives of Mounts Bay, as well as exploring its unique geology, ecology, history and culture.
Sat on the Mount recording
We began by exploring two different perspectives of Mounts Bay- from ‘In, On and Under the Sea’ and ‘from the Land’. There are thousands of different perspectives we could have gathered, but as we only had a short period of time to work on this project, we set out with our recording kit to gather as many different voices as possible. We also delved into the myths, language and legends associated with the bay.
Sat along the coastline, with varying views of the Mount, it was a real treat to be able to spend time listening and recording people’s stories and reflections. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed their time and stories, and to Emma for getting us involved in such a fascinating project. We hope you enjoy listening to the podcasts and you can read about some of our experience of the project over forthcoming blog posts.
The podcasts are part of the project led by artist Emma Smith, commissioned by Cornwall Council. The artwork is part of the EXPERIENCE project which promotes experiential tourism and sustainable economic growth during October to March. The project is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg France (Channel) England Programme under the Natural and Cultural Heritage funding category.
