Past><Futures
what's coming up and what's recently happened
November - December 2023: babblesnatch installed as 8-channel soundscape in Tin Shed's The Place, Newport, South Wales. The venue is the old main Post Office in Newport and reflects the work's concern with mass communication. Playing until 6 December. Visit babblesnatch page for more details.
October 2023 - September 2024: One year's residency awarded at The Studio, Bath Spa University's Enterprise and Innovation Hub, Bath. The Studio is the university's award-winning city centre home for enterprise and innovation, providing space for collaborations on projects and ideas that focus on creativity and technology.
October - November 2023: commissioned by international performance artist Denni Dennis to create the soundscape for a co-created Clown adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Working with Denni and videomaker Maria Manich. Premiere hosted by Esentai art gallery in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan. Funding awarded by Wales Arts International's International Opportunities Fund to enable Leona to travel to Kazakhstan to join her colleagues for the devising process.
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October 2023: visited the three-day Donaueschingen Festival of contemporary music taking place in the Black Forest in Germany as guest of SWR to receive the Karl Sczuka Grant Prize for babblesnatch. The prize is one of three awarded annually for works of radio art, and prizewinners are chosen following an international call-out. See babblesnatch page for more details. |
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August - September 2023: a 2-channel compacted version of babblesnatch (see immediately below) broadcast on Radiophrenia temporary radio arts station.
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Each year Radiophrenia broadcasts non-stop for two weeks from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. It's an aural festival exploring current trends in sound and transmission arts choosing its playlist from an international call-out. Visit the babblesnatch page for more details. |
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June 2022 - July 2023: babblesnatch eight-channel sensuous, imaginative, labyrinthine sonic immersion created entirely from two Voices performing an original script exploring the theme of eavesdroppings. Disorientation, disintegration and connection oscillate as sounds crack open conventional language to immerse the listener in a complex labyrinth comprising sonic colour, texture, sense and non-sense. The innate imperfections of our digital age are questioned. Throughout the project Leona was mentored by established electro-acoustic musician/composer/performer Caroline Wilkins. For more details visit the babblesnatch page.
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The project could not have taken place without the support of PRS Foundation's Women Make Music initiative. babblesnatch premiered at Somerset Film's Engine Room, Bridgwater, Somerset and their support is also gratefully acknowledged.
October 2022: listenspeak live audio editing performance with spoken word and vocalising as part of Shifting Sound experimental sound evening curated by Shift art space, Cardiff. Exploring the relationship between listening and speaking and acknowledging the ability to communicate of many other animate and inanimate forms than the human.
June 2022: part of group of Performance Philosophy members (with Caroline Wilkins, Anthony Gritten and Alexander Douglas) presenting audio works and performances using disruptive strategies at RMA Music and Philosophy conference on the theme of 'Opening Up Institutional Structures' at King's College, London.
March 2022: On the Offensive II and Wolf spoken word performance with sound manipulation, presented as part of Concentric exhibition at tactileBosch Lounge, Cardiff to mark International Women's Day. A response to the hypocrisy of and horrors allowed by the arms trade.
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February 2022: thrummm co-created soundscape chosen from international open call to be broadcast as part of Radiophrenia. The work was created as part of a collaboration between Leona and sound artist Jon Ruddick as part of their 2021 collaborative residency at Shift, Cardiff.
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Radiophrenia is a temporary art radio station broadcasting a two-week long festival exploring current trends in sound and transmission arts from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. For more details visit the thrummm page. |
November 2021: Witching Hours, a collaboration with performance artist Marega Palser, presented at The Thursday Show, a slot run by Shift/Tactile Bosch, Cardiff-based artist-led spaces supporting experimental performance. Leona's abstract surroundsounds were used as a basis by Marega to create movements, and both artists contributed to the design of the presentation, which took as its theme the life-journey of women. More details on the evolution of the piece can be found here.
November 2021: re:Source soundscape chosen from international open call to be broadcast as part of AIR radio's response to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) being held in Glasgow. Broadcast included a live interview with Leona.
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AIR collaborative radio space was created in response to COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, and broadcast for the duration of the event (31 October – 12 November 2021). Running as an open radio studio from Civic House, Glasgow, AIR was dedicated to experimenting with ideas and practices of ecological radio and acts of listening. It featured contributions by artists and climate activists in Glasgow and around the world, together with live environmental sounds. Visit re:Source page for details of the soundscape.
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November 2021: release of Cynefin album including Sound of the Breeze Song of the Waves community engagement composition created for Tŷ Cerdd's CoDI Grange project (see June - December 2020 below). The album contains all the compositions from the project, and can be accessed through several platforms. Visit Sound of the Breeze Song of the Waves page for details.
September 2021: On Edge Redux soundscape with live mixing presented at The Witching Hour, a week of live nighttime performances in Newport, South Wales, organised by performers Marega Palser and Steven George Jones.
August - September 2021: four week residency with OpenSound((()))ListeningSpace at Shift, Cardiff, which supports artists working with sound. Residency in collaboration with sound artist/performer Jon Ruddick and included solo and collaborative work shared at Shift during the final week. See thrummm page for more details.
July 2021: member of online panel of Performance Philosophy group members (with performers and researchers Caroline Wilkins, Anthony Gritten and Alexander Douglas) at an Associates Session for RMA Music and Philosophy Study Group on the theme of 'What is openness? Institutions in dialogue'. Presented an audio journey on Listening created for the event and took part in panel discussion and Q&A session.
February - May 2021: recipient of three months of mentoring after open call from Tŷ Cerdd, the organisation supporting Welsh music. International audio-visual artist Kathy Hinde gave support and cast an outside eye on creative practice, with the goal of creating an action plan outlining priorities for future activities.
June - December 2020: commissioned from open call to be one of six sound artists/composers creating sound installations for the multi-faith chapel space in the new Grange University Hospital at Llanfrechfa, Gwent, South Wales, due to open in late 2020. Working with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board Trust staff and music makers from the area to create a site-sensitive soundscape. Funded and managed by Tŷ Cerdd (the organisation promoting and supporting Welsh music present, past and future), Studio Response (public art brokers) and ABUHB. Installation was delayed by the Covid pandemic and took place in late summer 2021. See Sound of the Breeze Song of the Waves page for further details.
November 2020: re:Source soundscape selected from international open call broadcast on Radiophrenia. Broadcast soundfile is an edited version of the soundscape made from the sounds of the construction of a micro-hydro site - visit re:Source page for more details.
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Radiophrenia is an established temporary art radio station, on air annually live for two weeks from Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts. It promotes current trends in sound and transmission arts, and considers radio an art form, encouraging challenging and radical new approaches to the medium. |
November 2020: commissioned by Contemporary Art Society of Wales to create a documentary-style soundwork from monologues of women artists talking about their work and contributions to Concentric artists group (raw material for Th'luria). For dissemination to and discussion by all members of the Society via YouTube.
October 2020: +Fire+Ice+ spoken word, sound and visual work, a collaboration with musician Siôn Dafydd Dawson using original text, electric guitar sounds and found images. Created for Ysbrydnos::Hallowmas, a livestream to celebrate the mysteries associated with Hallowe'en and Wales' Noson Calan Gaeaf, and launch the cassette/booklet of The Shining Pyramid (see below). Curated by Dafydd Roberts and presented by Sound and Music. For more details visit +Fire+Ice+ page.
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March 2020: in(ex)teriors, a soundscape created in response to The Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen, the Gwent-born mystic and author, using his words and field recordings from his birthplace as raw material. Created for The Shining Pyramid, an all day symposium and evening performances comprising experimental music, films and papers inspired by the alchemy, magic and superstition of Wales. Curated by Dafydd Roberts and supported by Sound and Music. Due to have been held at National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, but cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic so a cassette tape and booklet of the submitted works was launched October 2020 (see above). See in(ex)teriors page for more details.
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November 2019: offered a week for experimentation and project development by Shift multi-disciplinary research and development arts space, Capitol Centre, Cardiff, using the time to further develop skills in multi-channel site-responsive sound installation. A public opportunity to experience the outcome was given in Shift's atmospheric cavernous concrete basement, the space for which the 8-channel work was created.
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July 2018 - May 2019: Born For It site-sensitive eight-channel two-hour long sound installation, the culmination of a period of research using the Museum of Bath at Work's exhibits and archives during a residency at the Museum in Bath, Somerset. Featuring voices from the Museum’s oral history archives with sounds recorded around the Museum, the work re-configured the main exhibition area of the Museum into an immersive listening space. For more details visit the Born For It page.
May 2019: Th'luria experimental sound work selected following an international open call, and broadcast as part of Radiophrenia 2019. Using Leona's audio recordings of seven women artists talking about their working practice, each woman becomes an impressionistic soundportrait reflecting a central notion of themselves as artists through their voices and words. Radiophrenia is an established temporary art radio station, on air live for two weeks from Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts. It promotes current trends in sound and transmission arts, and considers radio an art form, encouraging challenging and radical new approaches to the medium. For more details visit the Th'luria page.
March 2019: fragmanin two-channel audio essay created as part of Intervention! Intoxication?, the fourth biennial Performance Philosophy Research Festival & Conference which took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Drawing on relationships between spoken, written and written-to-be-read-aloud language this is an experimental work exploring how listeningwriting collides with live and mediated performance. The four-day event brought together artists, researchers, theatre professionals, students, activists - anyone interested in rethinking artistic intervention in its contemporary context. For more details visit the fragmanin page.
February 2017 - April 2018: re:Source audio/visual installation created in conjunction with visual artist Penny Hallas as artists-in-residence following the process of construction of the Blaen Dyar micro-hydro scheme in the Clydach Gorge, South Wales. Created from raw material recorded during construction, re:Source takes the form of videomusic, an abstract genre in which the goal is to create a flow of immersive visuals and sounds which moves through moods, and is open to imaginative interpretation by the audience. Presented in Studio CRiC, Crickhowell, Powys. For more details visit the re:Source page. Project funded by Llangattock Green Valleys, the Sustainable Development Fund of Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, and A&B Cymru's CultureStep.
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re:Source video still Penny Hallas |
February 2017: two interactive performances in collaboration with artist Adeola Dewis on the theme of interconnectivity, devised using text, ritual, vocalising, gestures, sounds, and clay. Part of Concentric women artist group's exhibition in celebration of International Women's Day at Cwtsh Gallery, Newport, South Wales.
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documentation image: John Briggs
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August - October 2016: selected to be part of two month group residency in Brunel House, Cardiff, Wales, on three unoccupied floors of the office tower block, recording the hidden and not-so-hidden sounds of the building. Culminating in soundscapes and a live performance of work in-situ with musician Siôn Dafydd Dawson. For more details visit the Unquiet page. Residency curated by Louise Ashcroft, Floating Island Gallery.
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May 2016: part of collaborative project Ancient Mariner: Not an Opera with artists and composers Ivor Davies, Joseph Hillyard, Julia E Howell, Richard McReynolds. An experimental immersive sound-led site-responsive journey through a poet’s hallucinatory mindscapes of beauty and horror, using live and recorded sound, composition and improvisation, voice and gesture, as a response to Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A two-hour long free, drop-in performance that took place in the entrance hall of National Museum Cardiff. For further information see Mariner page.
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November - December 2015: A Winter Wildness soundscapes for children's installation and performance, created from recordings made with a group of 4 - 10 year olds from Abergavenny, South Wales, during a series of workshops. Project co-run with performance artists Denni Dennis and Clare Parry-Jones. Presented in The Chapel, Abergavenny, on the winter solstice, 22 December. An exhibition based on the project was also presented in The Chapel, Market Street, Abergavenny in February 2016.
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one of the tracks created from original recordings made with the children's help and input (listen with headphones if you can)
June - July 2015: in audible: The Baroque Cello Project (Part II) an on-going developing sound-led project with performance, exploring the deep links between sound and movement. In collaboration with musician Siôn Dafydd Dawson and contemporary dancer Laura Moy. Presented at The Chapel, Abergavenny, South Wales. Full details on the in audible page of this website, and on the dedicated project website www.baroquecelloproject.com. Funding awarded by Arts Council Wales/The National Lottery.
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March 2015: Over Your Head site responsive work, David Lynch in conversation audio/visual work, and Dark Lantern performance writing work, three text-centred pieces as part of Concentric when six women artists made their mark for International Women's Day 2015. Presented at Cardiff M.A.D.E., Cardiff.
Over Your Head transient light piece in situ
image: Cardiff MADE
image: Cardiff MADE
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additional and prior work listed on CV