For The Dover Prize, I would create an interactive sculptural stage at Crymlyn Bog, on the outskirts of Swansea, making the site and its more-than-human actors accessible to audiences. I see it as a living exhibition project connecting peaty territories in Wales and the Great North Bog which spans the North Pennines, North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales National Parks. I perceive it as a composite of materials and collaboration that encourages ecological perspectives and sticky creative exchange.
My creative research on peatlands began in 2022, and a Future Wales Fellowship (2023- 25) enabled this work to continue in collaboration with Wales’s National Peatland Action Programme. It has encouraged me to push and pull at my usual ways of working and Peaty Patterns is the outcome: part site-research, part performance lecture, part sculptural investigation, I’ve shared the work at IMMA Dublin, HBK Braunschweig, the IUCN Peatland Conference as well as contributing to UP Project’s Constellations ° Assemblies .
In her book Stirring the mud: On Swamps, Bogs and Human Imagination, Barbara Hurd wrote “what knows no boundary between land and water will know no boundary at the edge of your body.” And on peatlands, boundaries become a blurred mess once you get stuck in, between what is solid/swampy, stable/unstable, alive/decaying. There is porosity here between human and more-than human patterns that start to establish new boardwalks of thought.
In the UK, like to many parts of the world, we are facing increasing wetness and rising instability on a multitude of levels, and I propose that becoming ‘peat-compatible’ may be a way forward for us. Embracing alternative patterns, timescales and forms of collaboration, it could be a way of nurturing new habits that help us form sustainable habitats in the long run. Through my sculptural work, these are the discussions I am exploring. The IUCN Peatland Conference will take place in Swansea in 2026 and my ambition is to create this sculptural stage in advance of this international event, bridging artistic and scientific approaches. The Dover Prize could help make this happen.
A counterpart installation would be created at an appropriate indoor/outdoor space in Darlington. The town is framed by the rich, peaty Great North Bog so it is very well suited to host this project. Through an Artist Research Fellowship awarded by the Henry Moore Institute, I will soon spend a month in Leeds at the Sculpture Research Library and specific areas of the Great North Bog. My project ‘Peat in Practice’ explores how artists have interacted with peat throughout art history, whilst simultaneously learning about restoration methods used by the Yorkshire Peat Partnership and other GNB partners. I’m intensely excited about this opportunity, and it would allow me to explore Darlington and its surroundings too.
In peatland restoration projects which I’ve witnessed in Wales, Scotland and Germany, there are diverse material approaches: industrial-scaled coir geotextiles cover expanses of the Cairngorms, biochar and gypsum have been introduced to the Cambrian Mountains, and Abernethy raised bogs have been sculpted with geotextiles that encourage growth of sphagnum moss. These diverse peat-compatible materials could be integrated into the installation in Darlington to raise awareness of the significance of peatlands as carbon stores and sites of biodiversity, demonstrating fruitful and progressive crossovers between art+science.
I’m an artist based in Caernarfon, North Wales, with a sculptural and performative practice rooted in specific sites. The ways in which materials stick to and transform locations and communities is of particular interest to me: from the patterns of peatlands to the textures of the intertidal zone, materials are a way of connecting to more-than-human bodies, helping us navigate more sustainable pathways on a range of scales. My interdisciplinary approach is moulded by my upbringing in north Wales, my academic studies in Architecture (Cambridge University) and Artistic Research (Royal College of Art). My work is part of the National Library of Wales, Boros and UK Government art collections, and solo and group exhibition venues include Mostyn, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, National Museum Cardiff, Georg Kolbe Museum, Kunstverein Nürnberg, Zeppelin Museum and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. I was recently fortunate to be granted a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award (2022-23) and a Future Wales Fellowship (2023-25). During this period, my practice has taken a peaty turn – you can listen to my material thoughts on Alice Vincent’s podcast as part of her Why Women Grow series, which we recorded on Crymlyn Bog, Swansea at the start of the year. One of my recent solo exhibitions was Wetland Dreams (2023) at Oriel Brondanw, in the Snowdonia National Park – a result of my sculptural research project Sticky Sculptures. It combined indoor and outdoor artworks with a programme of artist talks and performances, including a performative response by Faye Tan from National Dance Company Wales to my sculpture Under Pressure. This large piece was modelled on a smaller sculptural prop used on the peat fens of Anglesey. Through playfully disrupting the picturesque environment of Snowdonia, it is a callout on adventure tourism which dominates the area, highlighting its impact both culturally and ecologically. I collaborate regularly with practitioners from different fields, hosting workshops and creative events within my local, Welsh-speaking community and in schools and universities across the UK and Germany. Next month I will participate at ‘Bog Fest’ on Crymlyn Bog and a Symposium hosted by Kunstverein Arnsberg on Swamping: Wetlands for Future.
Do you have a degree in visual or applied arts at undergraduate and/or post-graduate level? Please provide details. (200 words)
2002-05
Architecture BA (Hons), University of Cambridge (2:1) 2013-15
Artistic Research, Royal College of Art, London (transfer from MPhil to PhD) Current
PhD through Creative Practice, Bangor University (part-time, unfunded)
2002-05
Architecture BA (Hons), University of Cambridge (2:1)
2013-15
Artistic Research, Royal College of Art, London (transfer from MPhil to PhD)
Current
PhD through Creative Practice, Bangor University (part-time, unfunded)
2025
Recipient of a Henry Moore Institute Artist Research Fellowship
2023-25
Future Wales Fellowship awarded by Arts Council of Wales and Natural Resources Wales
2022
Nominated Recipient of a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award
2022
Up Projects Constellation Cohort: Public Art Practitioners Development Programme
2015
Creative Wales Award, Arts Council of Wales
In Caernarfon, I run an artist-led studio called Stiwdio Cadnant with two other artists. We regularly host exhibitions, film screenings and poetry events within our local community. See https://www.instagram.com/stiwdio.cadnant/
Through my interest in peatland justice and restoration, I frequently collaborate on public events at local peat bogs e.g. most recently ‘Bogged down’ at Cors Fochno near Aberystwyth with RE-PEAT, Criw Compostio and Alys Fowler, and the upcoming ‘Bog Fest’ at Crymlyn Bog, Swansea with Natural Resources Wales. I hosted my own public event on the Anglesey fens in 2023 called ‘Peat Bodies’, inviting artists Teddy Hunter, Julie Upmeyer and Mari Rose Pritchard to collaborate and respond to the site in their own way. I imagine creating these forms of inter-disciplinary events at the sculptural stage created as part of this project, bringing artists, scientists, poets, dancers and academics to reflect on the future of peat-compatible bodies, materials and landscapes.
Far and Wide is a former interdisciplinary forum with a sculptural focal point which I created in 2014 at the Neolithic burial chamber Barclodiad y Gawres on Anglesey. The sculpture is now permanently installed at Nant Gwrtheyrn on the Wales Coast Path – https://manonawst.com/Far-and-Wide
I am currently completing a public artwork for the newly renovated Theatr Clwyd building, designed by Haworth Tomkins Architects. The artworks are large, screen-printed mirror pieces which span two walls of the public spaces. The building is due to open later in June:
https://www.theatrclwyd.com/news/award-winning-artists-creating-new-work-in-north-wales
North Wales Wildlife Trust recently commissioned me to respond sculpturally to their ‘Garden Escapers’ project which has resulted in a long-term sculpture at Gwaith Powdwr Nature Reserve. The corresponding development work and scientific information raising public awareness of invasive species is currently touring, with venues include Storiel, Bangor, Great Orme Country Park Visitor Centre, Llandudno, and Oriel Plas Glyn y Weddw, Llanbedrog.
Last year, the Arts Council of Wales commissioned me to creatively respond to their ‘Plan for Climate Justice and the Arts’. My film Estuary of Justice has been uploaded in the video links and you can read more about the context here:
https://arts.wales/about-us/strategy/plan-for-climate-justice-and-arts
In 2022, the Wales Coast Path celebrated their 10th anniversary with a project called Celf Coast Cymru 10 and I was commissioned to create a sculpture which reflected on the impact of tourism on the Welsh coastline: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSMGurEXmP8rK2QPjHWN4SerZgaYFKO4Y
The Government Art Collection purchased three of my artworks in 2024 –
https://artcollection.dcms.gov.uk/?s=manon+awst&display=artworkonly
My work is also part of the National Library of Wales and Welsh Parliament art collections.
My exhibition Wetland Dreams was featured in Artforum:
https://www.artforum.com/events/manon-awst-251527/
Bangor University wrote an article on my work on their news blog:
https://www.bangor.ac.uk/news/2023-07-06-artist-collaborates-with-biocomposites-centre-to-develop-sustainable-materials
Natural Resources Wales wrote an article on my peatland work on their news blog:
https://naturalresources.wales/about-us/news-and-blogs/blogs/lifequake-international-women-s-day-blog/?lang=en
Writer and journalist Alice Vincent featured my work in her podcast Why Women Grow:
https://www.alicevincent.co.uk/podcasts
I am not currently represented by a gallery.
2025
The Artist Research Fellowship from the Henry Moore Institute will allow me to spend a month at their Sculpture Research Library in Leeds, and the opportunity to explore areas of the Great North Bog this summer.
2022
Up Projects Constellations Cohort
Public Art Practitioners Development Programme
2012
Artist residency at CCA Andratx, Mallorca supported by Wales Arts International
2010
Artist residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, supported by the Henry Moore Foundation
2010
Artist residency at MeetFactory, Prague awarded by the Goethe Institute
Email: post@manonawst.com
Address: Cambrai, Twthill West, Caernarfon, Gwynedd, LL55 1PE, GB
