Sian Cornelius
Films
During lockdown I started playing about with film. As I couldn't perform as a storyteller, my creativity had to come out somehow. I've always loved film and projection, even in art college all those years ago... so I started filming the woods and beach around me in our 1 hour exercise 'escape'. This turned into me creating my first little film 'Old Moll', where I narrated one of the Old Gower Fairytales.
Old Moll
And my first outdoor installation, where I used a local cave and projected filmed images, to create a space of 'Awe and Wonder'.
Coming out of lockdown, I think we were all still scared of being indoors with people we didn't know. I started telling stories in outdoor community spaces and started meeting older people, with amazing stories.
For some growing up during the war, they remembered a time when life was hard, but so much simpler. It seemed that despite working hard to help the family survive, they remember the freedom they had, wandering the countryside. Something they all agree they feel children now miss out on.
I've since started to film these amazing people and their stories.
They will soon be online, for everyone to remember and enjoy.
Memory Reels
What started as 'playing around' during lockdown has now turned into a 3yr project, that has produced 11 short films. The films are a collection of the older generations stories, whose families have been on Gower for generations. These films started in an effort to try and preserve the history and heritage of Gower and have become so much more.
The 'Janet' lifeboat disaster
Farming and Estates
Farming and making ends meet
Music on Gower
Market Gardening
Shipwrecks & Contraband
Poems of Gower
Working with documentary filmmaker Paul O'Connor, 4 of the films above were made with his support and guidance, 3 of them we worked on together.
There are 3 other films that will be uploaded soon!
Cockle women of Penclawdd
(currently part of an exhibition at Swansea museum)
War and Fairwood common
(soon to be part of an exhibition at Swansea museum)
War on Gower
(soon to be part of an exhibition at Swansea museum)