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Authority record
Borth (Wales)

Layers in the Landscape

  • n/a
  • Corporate body
  • 2015-2020

Layers in the Landscape (Haenau yn y Tirwedd) was an interdisciplinary project conceived and co-ordinated by Erin Kavanagh, an archaeologist and geomythologist based near Lampeter. The project took an interpretation of deep mapping that had been developed in the work of Mike Pearson, Michael Shanks and Cliff McLucas - who regarded a deep map as both a process and a product, juxtaposing and combining disparate spatial narratives within a single, multi-faceted platform - and applied this approach to the submerged landscape of Cardigan Bay, and in particular the submerged forest at Borth. Participants in the project came from the fields of philology, art, storytelling, folk music, film, geology and archaeology, working together under the umbrella of geomythology, which is the study of landscape and story. The aim was to address the need for integrated science/art communication without hierarchy, speaking to the universal through the particular.

This theory was tested out by taking the idea on the road to different cultures, age groups, languages and environments, most notably in multimedia bilingual exhibitions ('Layers in Lampeter' at UWTSD Lampeter and 'Borth's lost legends' at Borth Station Museum) as well as in art galleries, museums, schools, colleges and community venues in fourteen countries. After Erin Kavanagh relinquished her active role in the project, it continued to be used in the teaching of deep mapping theory and practice across the world.