Absent but not Forgotten is having a great time in Conwy! Our work is installed in the courtyard of Plas Mawr – a beautiful Tudor town house in the centre of the town. We’ve been visiting the other artists involved in the festival and enjoying their work too. Blinc Digital Arts Festival is sharing the event with Conwy Food Festival, so the town has been buzzing with people. Come along and visit us if you’re in the area today.
We’re heading to Conwy this morning to install our triptych of films and our sound work in Plas Mawr ready for the blinc Digital Arts Festival this weekend. So excited to see everything in situ and find out what all the other artists will be showing….
Check here for a programme of the weekend’s activities.
We went down to Cardiff last night to install work in the window of Milkwood Gallery as part of the Made in Roath 2011 festival. You can see the work there until 31 October, but try and get along this weekend – there’s loads happening in spaces all over Roath.
As part of our project in Aberystwyth – The Seventh Room, we have been interviewing people in and around the town who have had experiences of ghosts or the paranormal. On Friday we visited Stuart Evans who works at Ceredigion Museum – the old Colosseum Theatre and cinema in Terrace Road.
We then went on to visit The Tynllidiart Arms in Capel Bangor just outside of Aberystwyth. There have been a number of strange incidents at the pub, including a photograph taken in 2004 in which a strange figure is captured sitting next to a customer at one of the tables.
Landlord Andy kindly suggested that we speak to barmaid Georgie who has had a few encounters with the resident ghost. Georgie told us some fantastic stories which were corroborated by both Andy and one of the pub visitors.
Apparently the ghost began to make its presence known when a pair of old baby shoes were discovered hidden inside a wall – when the shoes were moved the activity began. It is a very old custom to conceal shoes inside chimneys and walls, and considered very unlucky to remove them.
I took these images whilst we were setting up – I have had my camera since 2007 and I have taken thousands of images with it; I have to say I have never captured anything like these ‘orb’ like shapes before…the afternoon sun was strong and filtering in through the windows in shafts, but this misty effect was a surprise when I uploaded the pictures…
We spent Saturday looking through the footage we shot at Plas Mawr in search of anomalous sounds and visuals from our exploration of the house. The building is full of creaking floorboards and the sounds of an old house settling and shifting, but we did hear one strange thing coming from a chimney which was at a very low frequency so only audible when we compressed the sound…we’ve christened it The Woomphing Ghost of Plas Mawr and it came from the chimney in The Lantern Room where the ghost of Dr Dick is said to haunt…hmmm…
Absent But Not Forgotten will be manifesting at Abertoir Horror Film Festival this year! The project will be split between two spaces in Aberystwyth Arts Centre where the festival is held over 6 days. The Box will feature interview footage about the ghosts and stories of the area. The Studio will become an installation which uses sound and footage from our visits to Aberystwyth along with textiles and objects to create an immersive experience which explores the world of the paranormal, truth and fiction.
On Friday we spent the day with novelist Niall Griffiths who lives in the hills near Aberystwyth and wrote the guide book Real Aberystwyth. He very kindly took us to some of the significant locations in the area and seriously spooked us with the stories and legends that haunt the villages, mountains and woods.
We followed this with a visit to Nanteos Mansion, just outside Aberystwyth and chatted to caretaker Paul about his experiences and the stories that are linked to this Georgian house built in 1738 by William Powell. Paul is not convinced by the voracity of the traditional stories, but has had a few odd experiences in his 6 years at the property. He also told us some contemporary anecdotes about the ghost hunters that have visited to investigate Nanteos and caused more problems than the spooks they were looking for…
As part of our project with blinc Digital Arts Festival we are looking for stories about paranormal and spooky experiences you might have had or heard about in Conwy. We are interested to hear about the traditional ghost stories of the town, but we’d particularly like to hear about what has happened to you, your friends and family.
Have you seen or heard a ghost? Experienced any strange phenomena such as things moving on their own, untraceable noises, the feeling of an unexplainable presence? Do you know any anecdotal stories about ghosts or hauntings in Conwy?
You can email us with your stories and images abnf@hotmail.co.uk or by leaving us a comment on the stories page.
If you are available during the weekend of blinc Digital Arts Festival 22 & 23 October, we’d like to be able to conduct some interviews for our archive, so please let us know.
Plas Mawr was built in C1585, the town house of merchant, Robert Wynne and the wives from 2 marriages, both called Dorothy. The building is kept and furnished in Tudor style by CADW. It is a stunningly beautiful property. The first time we visited I particularly noticed all the little passageways, doors and stairways threading throughout the house. It’s a slightly more daunting prospect to walk through the house after dark, but that’s what we did on Sunday night in the company of Plas Mawr’s resident ghost tour organiser, Rhian.
Rhian dresses the part in her floor length grey cloak and hood and is essentially intent on scaring the bejesus out of you. I consider myself quite hardcore these days – but she still managed to make me jump a few times. We filmed in night vision throughout the house.
We began the project in earnest and headed up the A470 from west Wales to Conwy on Sunday, it was raining (obviously), it was unreasonably early and my car had broken down so we were in a borrowed one. We had access to Plas Mawr on Sunday night to begin shooting footage and capturing sound for the project – so we were fully kitted up and feeling excited.
Just outside Machynlleth at Dyfi Junction, the windscreen wipers started to play up and we had to pull over and wait for the AA…an omen? Well, maybe – but the AA man was lovely and he fixed us up nicely ready for the onward journey. We got there in good time to get set up and intrigued to meet Rhian, the ghost tour lady for the venue who was going to show us around…in the dark.
Absent But Not Forgotten 