A new artwork has been installed as part of a research project about Wales's highest mountain.
The 48-sheet billboard artwork, which measures 18 square metres, has been put up in Connah's Quay as part of the University of Chester's study of Snowdon.
The piece will remain on the gable end of a property at 65 High Street, Connah’s Quay, until November 22.
The installation follows two exhibitions curated by Dr Cian Quayle, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, who is working on the interdisciplinary research project titled 'Retracing Footsteps - The Changing Landscape of Yr Wyddfa / Snowdon'.
Dr Quayle said: "This artwork integrates image and text as in its cinematographic presentation and proposal Walking, Seeing and Reading the Landscape in which a lyrical inventory of isolated words and phrases evokes the liminal boundaries of time, space and lived-experience."
The project, co-led by artist Dr Quayle and cultural geographer Dr Daniel Bos, senior lecturer in human geography, explores the human imprint on the 1,085-metre Yr Wyddfa, which sees more than 600,000 visitors each year.
The team has been researching 19th-century visitor books from summit hotels, containing commentaries, drawings and poems, to contrast the then-tourism experience with today's.
Dr Quayle added: "The sublime is historically defined by apprehension and fear, which gives way to awe and wonderment.
"Today this conception of the sublime and the nature seeing and spectatorship, has been supplanted by one which is mediated through images which are ‘captured’ rather than ‘made’.
"The proliferation of mobile phone images is equally unsustainable in its unseen carbon footprint, where an unbounded volume of images are modulated, transmitted and mediated by an algorithm-defined reception rather than contemplation and reflection."
The project also considers the environmental impact on the mountain, raising concerns about unsustainable tourism, levels of plastic pollution and waste, and climate change.
The next phase of the project involves collaboration with Eryri Snowdonia National Park Authority, with photography, artworks, and a contemporary visitor book experience set for presentation at Betws-y-Coed and Hafod Eryri Visitor Centres in December 2024 and May 2025 respectively.
A second billboard artwork by Dr Quayle will be exhibited in Chester in April 2025.
Dr Quayle added: "This artwork is located in Connah’s Quay (Wepre was the historic Welsh place name) which - alongside Buckley, Shotton, and Flint - are towns on the Flintshire and North Wales (Deeside) border with England.
"Over time, these towns have developed as diverse communities, set against a maritime and post-industrial legacy, and an altogether different set of factors which impact upon this part of Wales, and the social and economic challenges which the area faces today."
For more information on the artwork and project, email communications@chester.ac.uk.
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