When you think about sustainability, you are, in one way or another, imagining the future. Heledd and I (Rosey) were interested in different visions of the future within the museum’s collection, and created three sound pieces in response to these.

Herbarium collection

‘Even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would plant an apple tree today.’ — Martin Luther

We visited the Herbarium in the National Museum to look at the seed collection (is there a more on-the-nose metaphor for the future than a seed?)

We thought about the collection of seeds and plant materials, their latent potential sat in dusty jars and tins, and imagined returning them to the earth.

We took some sound recordings of some of the seeds in the collection for this sound piece. (Thank you to Osian Gruffydd for translating and reading the short text in this piece.)

Fish in Trawsfynydd Lake

We read ‘March for a Safe Future’, a flyer from the museum’s collection, and compared this with language in current texts on the Sizewell website. (Sizewell is a nuclear plant in England.)

We also read about nuclear sites in Wales, Trawsfynydd and Wylfa, and wrote a short sound piece thinking about the future of Trawsfynydd and its lake.

Closed in 1991, Trawsfynydd won’t be ready for decommission until 2071*** because parts in the factory are still ‘far too radioactive’ to be dismantled.

Welsh Government are now planning “small modular reactors” that will get put on land near the old site, even though the village of Llan Ffestiniog, 3km downwind from the power station, had dramatically increased rates of cancer as a result.

Trawsfynydd Lake is also an active fishing spot despite the fact all the liquid discharges from the plant went into it.

Swimmers

Swimmers is responding to Bedwyr Williams’s Y Tyrrau Mawr: its vision of a town of fantastic skyscrapers on Cader Idris, and the fantasies and irritations of the individuals living there.

Swimmers also imagines a future community – but one adapting instead to flooding and sea level rise.