Created to follow the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages, Gwrando has provided a journey of learning and discovery for the artists and staff involved. There have been some wonderful stories of artistic collaboration and deep relationships nurtured that will continue to grow over years to come. There have also been a number of challenges, forcing us to question our own histories, assumptions and standpoints. The journey is an individual, personal one which has enabled us to better understand our own perspectives of where we’re listening from based on our own backgrounds and life experiences.
Throughout the whole process, our identities have been challenged – for those who speak an Indigenous language but don’t identify as Indigenous; for those of us who reap the privileges of being part of a global power and its colonial history; for those who are reclaiming their ancestral language and culture that have been lost; or for those who speak other languages – like the language of disability, and how this changes between cultures. We have been humbled listening to the different experiences of Indigenous people and their way of being and seeing the world through their Indigenous languages. We have questioned our motives, histories and biases, and been surprised at how the act of listening has posed these internal questions and have been explored and felt so deeply.
Activity was set around workshops and group sessions for capturing experiences and to share learning, and it quickly became clear that there were key themes that overlapped between the artists funded through Gwrando on their self-directed projects.
The passing of time and using markers in nature was a clear common thread, with cycles in circles, reflecting life and the changing of seasons. Time was also discussed in terms of investing in long term relationships that don’t fit our normal parameters of projects and how they are defined. The passing of time puts pressure, asserts deadlines and rushes us all, and moving away from these constraints provided freedom to share, be creative and process things more deeply.
It also became apparent that working digitally was not the right approach to nurture deep relationships or to hold sensitive conversations. Following the first digital workshop in May, there was an in-person gathering held at the Eisteddfod’s visit to Boduan in August, where we were joined by Sami artist and joik singer, Ole-Henrik Lifjell. He listened in on our conversations and offered invaluable insight that further changed the course of the programme. We had realised that in trying to be careful, we had stopped doing, and being passive was not an option either – better to make mistakes and acknowledge our shortcomings than do nothing at all.
We also discussed power and privilege, co-creation, intellectual property, entitlement, language loss and trauma. Huge subjects that we haven’t yet fully unravelled, and will continue this work as we go on our individual and collective journeys.
We returned many times to asking ourselves what our role in Wales may be. We are fortunate that the Welsh language is in a relatively healthy condition compared to the Indigenous language that is lost every two weeks (UN Source), and whilst we don’t need this space to platform our own language, we hope we can make way to offer a safe space for other Indigenous languages to be spoken and culture to be shared.
These and other learning points will help form a co-created toolkit to support artists to navigate working with Indigenous cultures and languages in the future, by sharing the learning that has already taken place to hopefully ensure the same challenges are anticipated or not encountered at all. We will collect the vast learning from the funded artists and the wider sector undertaking work in this area to help inform our toolkit in our next Gwrando event held in Aberystwyth in March 2024, and then shared with Indigenous thought leaders later in the year to put our toolkit suggestions to the test to those with lived experience, as well as to share more broadly at WOMEX24 in Manchester in the autumn.
This blog post was written by Elen Roberts, Freelance Project Manager of Gwrando.
Wales Arts International and Arts Council of Wales staff as funders and developers of this programme have learnt that to be truly globally responsible in how we invest our funding, we need to go beyond just acknowledgement of Indigenous communities and languages in the countries where we work. We have an obligation under the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act to be globally responsible and as part of Arts Council's new Climate Justice Strategy, WAI commits to be taking forward indigenous-led approaches, which includes ensuring that we include Indigenous voices in our discussions.
Here’s a short summary of the Gwrando artist-led explorations, with fuller details coming soon as the projects come to an end:
Siri Wigdel - 'Govledh’ Siri has been working with the Norwegian/Sami company GullBakken and Ole-Henrik Lifjell around the South Sami tradition of joiking. Siri who is from Norway and has recently discovered she has Sami ancestry, has been researching further into the rich and vast culture surrounding this tradition, as well as collaborating with Wales-based artists Cai Tomos and Jodie Marie.
Chembo Liandisha – ‘Namvwa’ researched and listened to the culture of her mother’s mother-tongue in Zambia with the Gawa Undi and the Chewa People listening to their concerns, thoughts, hopes for the present and future within a fast changing environment.
Dylan Huw – ‘cyfiaith/queer’ created dialogue and exploratory writing between Welsh and Irish writers/artists working in Gaeilge and Cymraeg, exploring the notion of queer language-making and the importance of listening to endangered and minoritised languages and communities, in conversation with emergent queer and ecological sensibilities.
Georgina Biggs – ‘Ways of Listening’: Georgina deepened her shared cultural and creative exploration of ways of listening, listening to voices of ancestors with Anthar Kharana alongside Javier Peralta (a visually impaired musician based in Bogota), exploring the traditional healing ritual of Colombia’s indigenous Muisca people.
Veronica Calarco – ‘Gwrando Dwfn Molla Wariga’ developed an exchange between artists in Australia, Ireland and Wales, creating space for the artists to reframe how they learn from each other, and share knowledge of each other’s cultural, linguistic and creative explorations.
Gareth Bonello – ‘'Sai-thaiñ’ worked with Lapdiang Syiem, a poet, activist and performer from the Indigenous Khasi community of Meghalaya, Northeast India. They explored the complex connections between Welsh and Khasi people and the challenges facing both societies. Their work combined poetry, performance, music and audio/visual material in Welsh and Khasi, building on their ongoing collaboration on cultural identity, social justice and environmental issues.
Iola Ynyr – ‘Coflaid’ – Iola is interested in listening to the stories of indigenous women in Canada, sharing experiences and realities, contrasting the similarities and differences between communities in Canada and Wales.