Coed Coexist
Ever Moving Towards the Sea / Yn Symud Tua’r Môr Bob Amser
Gabriella Rhodes and Benjamin Green present a collaborative installation for the Coed Coexist commission, bringing together analogue filmmaking and sculptural practice through sustained, place-responsive fieldwork along the boulder-clay coastline of Pen Llŷn. The work explores themes of cohabitation, co-creation, and multi-species thinking, foregrounding how landscapes emerge through ongoing interactions between geological, ecological, and cultural systems.
The project is grounded in a shared methodology informed by deep mapping and more-than-human geographies. Fieldwork has combined deep listening using hydrophones, 360° ambient sound recording, analogue photography, moving image, sketching, archival research, and material studies. Clay-rich soils collected from coastal landslips, locally sourced straw, and seaweed gathered from the peninsula form the material basis of the work, emphasising sustainable, site-specific approaches and practices of care.
Rhodes created clom-based sculptural forms and wall pieces made of straw and boulder clays from Pen Llŷn. These sculptures function as abstract responses to encounters with the peninsula’s landscapes, referencing topographical features, ecological observations at the cliff sites,, as well as local clom-building traditions. Pigmented with crushed charcoal from a fallen beech tree or left in the natural colours of the clay, the works are accompanied by material tests and samples that reveal their geological composition and making processes.
Green is producing two 16mm films that focus on moments of transition and overlap between land and sea, as well as the erosion and movement of water through coastal cliffs. The films are projected within the installation and physically incorporated through processed film strips that are woven around and suspended between the sculptures. As these film elements accumulate dust and scratches over time, their gradual degradation mirrors natural processes of erosion and renewal.
Together, the works form an evolving installation in which sculpture and moving image remain in dialogue. Field observations and material tests accompany the installation, emphasising its relational, process-led nature and inviting reflection on interdependence, cohabitation, and co-flourishing across human and more-than-human worlds.
Gabriella Rhodes and Benjamin Green present a collaborative installation for the Coed Coexist commission, bringing together analogue filmmaking and sculptural practice through sustained, place-responsive fieldwork along the boulder-clay coastline of Pen Llŷn. The work explores themes of cohabitation, co-creation, and multi-species thinking, foregrounding how landscapes emerge through ongoing interactions between geological, ecological, and cultural systems.
The project is grounded in a shared methodology informed by deep mapping and more-than-human geographies. Fieldwork has combined deep listening using hydrophones, 360° ambient sound recording, analogue photography, moving image, sketching, archival research, and material studies. Clay-rich soils collected from coastal landslips, locally sourced straw, and seaweed gathered from the peninsula form the material basis of the work, emphasising sustainable, site-specific approaches and practices of care.
Rhodes created clom-based sculptural forms and wall pieces made of straw and boulder clays from Pen Llŷn. These sculptures function as abstract responses to encounters with the peninsula’s landscapes, referencing topographical features, ecological observations at the cliff sites,, as well as local clom-building traditions. Pigmented with crushed charcoal from a fallen beech tree or left in the natural colours of the clay, the works are accompanied by material tests and samples that reveal their geological composition and making processes.
Green is producing two 16mm films that focus on moments of transition and overlap between land and sea, as well as the erosion and movement of water through coastal cliffs. The films are projected within the installation and physically incorporated through processed film strips that are woven around and suspended between the sculptures. As these film elements accumulate dust and scratches over time, their gradual degradation mirrors natural processes of erosion and renewal.
Together, the works form an evolving installation in which sculpture and moving image remain in dialogue. Field observations and material tests accompany the installation, emphasising its relational, process-led nature and inviting reflection on interdependence, cohabitation, and co-flourishing across human and more-than-human worlds.
About Coed Coexist
Coed Coexist is a project initiated by Pen Llŷn artists Junko Mori and John Egan in partnership with Plas Glyn-y-Weddw. The project draws attention to trees and woodland ecosystems, exploring our connections, dependencies, and responsibilities towards them, while bringing together community, creativity, and environmental stewardship. At its core, Coed Coexist seeks to celebrate the local landscape and the communities of Pen Llŷn.
Utilising solely fallen or felled trees from the peninsula and Winllan Woods at Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, Coed Coexist presents new creative work alongside public and community engagement activities in and around Plas Glyn-y-Weddw. Following the symposium held in September 2024, creative practitioners with connections to Pen Llŷn and the wider Gwynedd area were invited to develop new work for the 2026 exhibition.
For more information, visit oriel.org.uk/en/projects/coed-coexist
Coed Coexist is a project initiated by Pen Llŷn artists Junko Mori and John Egan in partnership with Plas Glyn-y-Weddw. The project draws attention to trees and woodland ecosystems, exploring our connections, dependencies, and responsibilities towards them, while bringing together community, creativity, and environmental stewardship. At its core, Coed Coexist seeks to celebrate the local landscape and the communities of Pen Llŷn.
Utilising solely fallen or felled trees from the peninsula and Winllan Woods at Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, Coed Coexist presents new creative work alongside public and community engagement activities in and around Plas Glyn-y-Weddw. Following the symposium held in September 2024, creative practitioners with connections to Pen Llŷn and the wider Gwynedd area were invited to develop new work for the 2026 exhibition.
For more information, visit oriel.org.uk/en/projects/coed-coexist
Organisation: Plas Glyn-y-Weddw in partnership with artists Junko Mori and John Egan
Type: Commission
Location: Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, North Wales
Date: May-July 2026
Type: Commission
Location: Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, North Wales
Date: May-July 2026
Distribution of glacial till deposits and subsoil grain size across the Llŷn Peninsula. Source: UK Soil Observatory.
Geology
Much of the coastline is composed of soft glacial till, or boulder clay — unconsolidated sediments deposited during the last Ice Age as the Welsh Ice Cap (WIC) and Irish Sea Ice Stream (ISIS) advanced and retreated across the peninsula. These cliffs exist in a continual state of instability, shaped through erosion, slumping, groundwater seepage, tidal action, and storm events, processes now intensified by climate change and rising sea levels.
As the cliffs retreat, sediment and geological strata are exposed and redistributed across the shoreline, reshaping the coast while contributing to habitat change, infrastructure loss, and shifting ecological conditions. Clay-rich soils gathered from landslips became both material and record within the project, carrying traces of deep time and ongoing coastal transformation. The work considers the coastline not as a fixed boundary, but as an active material system in which erosion, ecology, and human intervention are deeply entangled.
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As the cliffs retreat, sediment and geological strata are exposed and redistributed across the shoreline, reshaping the coast while contributing to habitat change, infrastructure loss, and shifting ecological conditions. Clay-rich soils gathered from landslips became both material and record within the project, carrying traces of deep time and ongoing coastal transformation. The work considers the coastline not as a fixed boundary, but as an active material system in which erosion, ecology, and human intervention are deeply entangled.
Ecology
Fieldwork for Ever Moving Towards the Sea / Yn Symud Tua’r Môr Bob Amser has focused on the shifting ecologies of the boulder-clay cliffs and intertidal zones of Pen Llŷn. These unstable coastal systems are shaped by continual erosion, slumping, tidal movement, and exposure, creating habitats that exist in a state of constant transition. The soft glacial till cliffs support specialised plant and invertebrate communities adapted to disturbance and change, including maritime grasslands of thrift, red fescue, and buck’s-horn plantain, as well as solitary mining and mason bees that nest within exposed cliff faces.
Along the intertidal zone, accumulations of seaweed, shifting sediments, rock pools, and freshwater seepages create layered environments where marine and terrestrial systems overlap. Observations of these fragile and adaptive ecologies informed both the material processes and conceptual framework of the work, shaping an understanding of the coastline as a site of interdependence, instability, and ongoing transformation.
Along the intertidal zone, accumulations of seaweed, shifting sediments, rock pools, and freshwater seepages create layered environments where marine and terrestrial systems overlap. Observations of these fragile and adaptive ecologies informed both the material processes and conceptual framework of the work, shaping an understanding of the coastline as a site of interdependence, instability, and ongoing transformation.
Horsetails growing in boulder clay
Left: Various animals tracks in the clay. Right: Common Bird's-foot Trefoil
Sand martins nesting in cliffs
Gullweed Observations in inter-tidal zone
Seagrass meadows growing in soft sediment bed
Left: Various animals tracks in the clay. Right: Common Bird's-foot Trefoil
Human History
The boulder clay coastline of Pen Llŷn carries a layered human history shaped by the same unstable geology that defines it. Alongside continual erosion and deposition, the cliffs have supported small-scale extraction and adaptive use: 19th-century lime kilns at Ty’n y Borth (recorded on historic Ordnance Survey maps), used to burn imported limestone for agriculture and building; short-lived brickworks at Porth Neigwl (GAT95917), operating in the late 19th century and dependent on local clay before economic and coastal pressures led to their decline; and the former RAF base at Porth Neigwl (RAF Hell’s Mouth), shaped by the peninsula’s exposed coastal position.
These sites sit within the same active material system as the cliffs themselves, where clay and sediment are continually eroded, reused, and redistributed. This history also connects to vernacular clom and earthen building traditions across Wales, where local soils were used directly in construction, binding human settlement to processes of weathering and change.
These sites sit within the same active material system as the cliffs themselves, where clay and sediment are continually eroded, reused, and redistributed. This history also connects to vernacular clom and earthen building traditions across Wales, where local soils were used directly in construction, binding human settlement to processes of weathering and change.
Left: Lime kiln, Porth Oer. Right: Example of traditional clom construction, St Fagans National Museum of History.
Material (Un)learning
A key part of the research involves working directly with sediments from across the Pen Llŷn coastline. Material testing, including jar tests, polished clay spheres, shrinkage, colour variation, and structural behaviour, is used to understand how glacial deposits shift across short distances in response to mineral composition, moisture, and erosion processes. This variability resists any notion of clay as a neutral or standardised medium, revealing it instead as site-specific and materially active.
These material experiments sit alongside sculptural and film work, and connect to vernacular clom and earthen building traditions, where local soils were shaped directly into architecture rooted in place. Craft becomes an entry point into material ecologies, where geological conditions, ecological systems, and human practices are understood as entangled rather than separate.
These material experiments sit alongside sculptural and film work, and connect to vernacular clom and earthen building traditions, where local soils were shaped directly into architecture rooted in place. Craft becomes an entry point into material ecologies, where geological conditions, ecological systems, and human practices are understood as entangled rather than separate.
Boulder clay sample
Material samples with local boulder clays
Clay plaster samples with local boulder clays
Final Installation
