Researching the social-history of Aberglasney House and Gardens in Carmarthenshire and the noted poetry of former resident John Dyer (1699-1757), acted as a catalyst, inspiring me  to develop and create a series of woven textiles and motion activated audio installations inside the house and within the gardens.

Ainsley worked on this project with musician and sound engineer Rhys James. Together they undertook site-recordings capturing the unique seasonal soundscape within Aberglasney and its Gardens.

Within the Cloister Garden, an audio installation reacts to visitor movement and weaves together the aural soundscape with fragments of John Dyer’s poems ‘Grongar Hill’ and ‘The Country Walk’ along with recollections of local resident’s.

These sound recordings are merged together and highlight the affective bond between people and place, and the interweaving relationship of land and language, into something that is historically and socially experienced.

Each encounter unlocked a different fragment of poetry or spoken voice and echoed through the space, composing a unique experience for each person.

During this period, Ainsley sketched, recorded and photographically documented aspects of the landscape as well as the interiors of the house not yet open to the general public. The ephemeral textures of light in the landscape and the shifting shadow reflections of water are transfigured into jacquard weaves, in which Ainsley renders the tones of photographic images into a series of woven structures and material forms.

The project enabled the space to speak its past through the echoes of the present, whilst the audience becomes immersed within the textures of this unique place.