Gwaith Powdwr

2023

Gwaith Powdwr is a nature reserve just across the fields from my home in Penrhyndeudraeth, on the site of the former Cooke’s explosives factory, once the largest in Europe. The factory was a major employer in the area despite the hazardous work – industry and activity, friendship and loss all mixed at the site. My sculpture is a memorial to all the former workers at the site as well as being a celebration of new life and new generations, as nature reclaims the site.

Conceived to echo the circular mixing vats of the white chemicals, the sculpture is made in my own bespoke mix of machine-polished white concrete. On the top, slate slabs radiate like a cog wheel, an explosion, or a flower head. Bi-lingual text that I created in collaboration with Gwenlli Haf draws the viewer around the sculpture and images of leaves that I created with volunteers and school children are built into openings in the cylindrical surface. The imagery is completed by a white leaf turning the slate cog, constructed in reference to the sandbag blast walls that remain such a feature of the site.

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