Sownd [ar safle]

Manon Awst + Dylan Huw

06 June 2026 - 12th September 2026

Sownd [ar safle] is a sequence of three site-specific live events in Wales, presented as part of Sownd, a project for the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The programme is taking place on peatland sites across Wales, and is organised by artists Manon Awst and Dylan Huw in collaboration with Sownd’s curatorial team and invited artists.

Sownd [ar safle] is an invitation to get stuck in to wet and unsteady ground. 

Sownd [ar safle] is a sticky terrain: a submersion into the storied matter of time. 

Sownd [ar safle] is a structure for producing bodily connection with Welsh lineages of “liveness.”

Sownd [ar safle] invites artists and audiences in Wales to sink deeper into Sownd’s themes and materials. For both the Venice exhibition and the site-specific programmes in Wales, Manon Awst and Dylan Huw have drawn on research in Welsh peatlands: sticky and unstable environments that both conceal and reveal vast scales of material history. These sites, layered with organic matter and cultural memory, become a terrain from which the artists navigate sedimented histories of language, culture, and ecology. The collaboration between Awst and Huw invites connections between disciplines and across borders, informed by Wales’ celebrated history of site-specific collective practice and its oral poetic tradition. 

Each event will feature a performative presentation by Manon Awst and Dylan Huw alongside newly commissioned live work responding to the particularity of its site by leading Wales-based artists.

Cymru yn Fenis / Wales in Venice is commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales with support and collaboration from the Welsh Government, Wales Arts International and the British Council. Sownd [ar safle] / Sownd [on site] is further supported by the Colwinston Charitable Trust and Art Fund