Phil Owen
I'm a musician, producer and workshop leader, living in south Bristol. I'm interested in the contemporary arts, community heritage, and cultural geography.
Leading a folksong workshop at Dawe's Twineworks, West Coker for Od Festival 2021. Photograph by Brendan Buesnel.
Selected projects
Somerset - Traditional Songs and Hymns
An ongoing project. For many years, I've been interested in performing old music in sites to which it has historic/conceptual/conjectural links. And so this is a field recording project, mostly of folk songs which Cecil Sharp collected in Somerset, sung in a range of locations across the county. I've put a selection on Bandcamp.
Down By The Green Gardens
Inspired by the songs of Henry Thomas, a traditional folk singer who lived near Yate over a century ago, Down By The Green Gardens is a reflection on place, memory and belonging. Featuring local singers, historians and folklorists, and five of Henry Thomas’s songs, the piece is an invitation to explore a little-known aspect of South Gloucestershire heritage.
Commissioned as part of the Home from Home programme. Supported by Arts Council England, Barratt Homes and Yate Parish.
Lefelau Byw/Living Levels
For a year from May 2020, I ran a community writing group for the RSPB project Living Levels, to explore creative writing as a way for people to deeply engage with the Gwent Wetlands. After shifting the original workshop online due to the first Coronavirus lockdown, we continued to meet once a month on Zoom. In spring 2021 I edited a collection of writing by members of the group, published here.
The Ballad of Anchor Head Cove
A sound piece created with Sam Francis.
Taking the stories of three historical protagonists – a swimmer, a song, and a hotel – the piece uncovers a soundtrack for a small, pebble beach in Weston Super Mare.
Commissioned by Culture Weston for Heritage Open Days, September 2020.
https://soundcloud.com/samfrancisco5/a-ballad-of-anchor-head-cove
O is this called Lord Bateman's castle, and is his Lordship here within?
A song-walk for the 2018 Od Arts Festival. Songs collected by folklorists in and around East and West Coker, sung at locations throughout the villages.
Croesoswallt – Language, loss and retellings on the Wales/England border
Drawing on oral histories and ancient literature to develop new writing from the Wales/England border country. Outputs include 'Baswn i’n gweld y lle hon, trwy eich gweledigaeth/I would see this place through your vision', an account of being led through the Oswestry uplands by my visually impaired Uncle (published in Uniformannual and Something Other); an essay commissioned by A Forgotten Landscape, which imagines the Severn Estuary as a cultural border zone; and a piece which interweaves documentary writing from the old drover's road between Oswestry and Bala, with memories of a family friend who attended Cymanfa Ganu hymn-singing sessions in the area in the 1940s and 50s (published in The Learned Pig ).
I Hear Your Voice at the Back of my Throat
A performance-lecture, in-conversation, and audience-sing-along, with Belfast traditional singer and artist Phil Hession. Experimentica Festival, 2016.
Where is this voice coming from, and who am I when I can hear it?
A text I wrote in 2013, to try and set out my thoughts on the English folk song tradition, and the idea of a voice as an archive. I presented it in various guises, in print and through various readings, including through Doggerland journal # 3, Writing Sound (Tertulia at Arnolfini, and Lydgalleriet Bergen), Onomato (The Cube Microplex, 2016) and Something Other.
Tertulia
A literary salon I co-curated with Megan Wakefield from 2010 – 2016. Dedicated to platforming new and experimental work around language and voice, we hosted over 40 artists, writers and musicians at venues across the Westcountry and south Wales. We also regularly ran workshops on different aspects of art-writing.
I have worked as a singer and viola player with many musicians, including Kathy Hinde, Paul Jebanasam, Ben Owen, Roly Porter, and Caroline Wilkins.
I have written for or with a number of other artists, including Mauricio Anzeri, Kathryn Ashill, Nancy Campbell, Laura Reeves, The Collect and Clare Thornton, contributing both critical commentary and/or more experimental/collaborative pieces.
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Arnolfini
For many years, my 'day job' has been at Arnolfini, a contemporary arts centre on the Bristol harbourside. I now run the live events programme, and feel very lucky to be able to work with so many brilliant creatives, thinkers and audience members.
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p1owen[at]yahoo.com
@FiniPhil