Threads in the Ground are preparing a funding applications to Arts Council England / Arts Council of Wales / Creative Scotland and National Lottery Heritage Fund for a national tour of Ancestral Reverb. They want to invite you to be part of their plans.
Below is the full brief from Threads in the Ground:
Fee: £5,000 (inclusive of materials)
Dates: April - September 2027 (flexible to match needs of partners, community and artist)
Main Contact: Anneleise Shepherd, Cyfarthfa Foundation. ashepherd@cyfarthfafoundation.wales
Introduction
Threads in the Ground are preparing our funding applications to Arts Council England / Arts Council of Wales / Creative Scotland and National Lottery Heritage Fund for our national tour of Ancestral Reverb. We want to invite you to be part of our plans.
We want to invite you to create something inspired by the concept of “Carbon Heritage” as part of the Ancestral Reverb national tour in 2027. We are planning the tour of listening party events and exhibitions to visit around 7 former coalfield communities in the UK.
We want to create an opportunity in each place to respond and add to the story of Ancestral Reverb and our framing of “Carbon Heritage”. We want the response to be created with the communities in each place - for participating community members to have a deep and genuine sense of ownership and agency in the creative process and what is expressed by the final works.
We are very open to reshaping this brief based on your own thoughts and feedback. We trust your expertise and want to support you to feel as confident and excited in the project as we are. We are offering you the same level of collaboration and trust with us as you will be asking of the community you work with.
What is Ancestral Reverb
Ancestral Reverb is an exploration of our Carbon Heritage, through sounds, words and pictures, launched in October 2025.
The piece was made using music spanning over 100 years, and the words of coal community members whose ages ranged from 5 to 94. It contains sounds captured in a coal mine, photos taken with a Victorian-era camera, and stories passed through generations. The records are embedded with fragments of coal, scavenged in big chunks from the beach at Blackhall Colliery.
Each record is an heirloom, entrusted into the care of families and institutions who carry parts of our collective Carbon Heritage. We hope they care for them and hand them down with hope and pride. The project was commissioned by the Durham Miners Association, as part of the Redhills creative residency programme. Ancestral Reverb is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
Partners
As part of the national tour, we are working to bring this project to Merthyr Tydfil. We are currently planning with the following locally-rooted organisations, in order to deliver community engagement, educational workshops, training and events.
- The Cyfarthfa Foundation
- Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery
- Merthyr’s Roots
We are looking for an artist who would be interested in joining the project.
Artist Brief
- The core of this brief is about holding space for the local community to delve deeply into the concept of “Carbon Heritage”
- We want your community collaborators to find and hold ownership of the ideas that emerge in the process.
- We imagine a challenging aspect will be pushing beyond nostalgia. This is not a project looking only to the past, platforming existing narratives about pit communities. It’s about honouring our collective past, present, and futures through the lens of Carbon Heritage.
- We want you to create a genuine collaboration with the local community to explore ideas of “Carbon Heritage” relevant to their own place, histories, and futures.
- We want you to create a new work, co-produced with the local community, to feature in the Ancestral Reverb exhibition in Merthyr Tydfil.
- Other than budget, there are no constraints or expectations on what it is you produce for the exhibition.
- It could be that work made directly by the community is displayed. Or that the group trusts and feels ownership of a piece made by you as their representing artist.
More about the community
- You will be working with community groups, young people and/or schools in Merthyr Tydfil.
- The generosity of spirit and strong sense of community of the people in Merthyr Tydfil is a key part of the history of the county and is integral to this project. The community of Merthyr Tydfil played a key role in shaping the modern world.
- Merthyr Tydfil is a town that has written itself into the history of Wales and the world –a place of pioneering technological, industrial, political, social and environmental change. At their zenith the ironworks of Merthyr Tydfil constituted the greatest
concentration of iron production in world. Its themes and stories speak to the present and hold lessons for the future. - You will be supported by Anneleise Shepherd, Community Development Manager at the Cyfarthfa Foundation; Charlotte Barry, Education and Interpretation Officer at Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Gallery and Ben Evans, Project Manager at Merthyr’s Roots. These organisations have existing relationships with people across Merthyr Tydfil to support with engagement, events and outreach.
Appointment Process
We hope you’re as excited by the potential of the project as we are, and that we’ll get to work together - but we want the community you will work with to have ownership throughout, so our commissioning of you will be subject to the support of representatives of the local community. As such, we are asking that you:
- Prepare an Expression of Interest. We are imagining a 1 - 2 page document or short video, but want to be flexible to how you would like to do this. We imagine the EOI including:
- An introduction to you
- An introduction to your practice
- What it is that draws you to doing this practice
- How you imagine working with the community
- Attend an interview with a small panel including the partners and Threads in the Ground.
- We are looking to submit our funding applications in October 2026. We do not expect you to do any new work supporting this application, but will request existing copy and portfolio to support the application process.
EOI to be sent to Anneleise Shepherd by 30 September 2026.
Panel interviews October 2026