Project description:
The Long View took its name from the idea that looking out to the horizon and beyond is beneficial to our well-being. The project was co-delivered by Taylor Edmonds and Nasia Sarwar-Skuse. It combined physically visiting nature spaces in Cardiff and the surrounding areas, with creative writing workshop activities and storytelling to create a sense of belonging for participants and to claim space in their environment.
It is well documented that women of colour feel excluded from accessing nature and landscape, especially women that have had to leave their home country and make a new place their home. The project encouraged the participants to write themselves into their environment in spaces where they have historically been excluded, by exploring their sense of belonging, community, and connection to the natural environment.
Participant Feedback
The stories we shared were beautiful and all our past memories came alive in the sessions. The chance to write about and discuss nature is what I liked about the project. I also loved to read and write poems and share them in the sessions.
I enjoyed the gentle, calming manner of the sessions, giving everyone the opportunity to express themselves. It felt like a safe space to be in.
Poem – The Long View
Nature is everything that life is. We plant trees
When babies are born in an act of hope for the future.
Ukwu orji. Trees remind us of our ancestors,
life before us and life after we’re gone.
We gather under those same trees, pick
Papaya, guava, mango from our gardens,
Nourished by nature. Mausomay khazan.
Autumn comes as it always does,
Reminds us of the cycle of things,
To have trust in the process.
We visit the sea with the heaviness
Of life and worry, with the receding
Tide we give it all up, watch it wash out.
Stand under the rough and rugged
Force of a waterfall, watch the landscape
From a mountain top. Reminded
We are small but part of something.
We retreat in the winter and dream
Of the long view from the wet sand
Out to the horizon. Ala mma.
Written by The Aurora Trinity Collective in collaboration with Nasia Sarwar-Skuse and Taylor Edmonds Watch The Long View on Youtube.
Artist biographies:
Taylor Edmonds is the Poet in Residence for the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. She has worked as a writer and creative facilitator in Wales for over three years. In 2020 she received one of Literature Wales’ Rising Stars Awards. She is a team member of Where I’m Coming From, a community-focused platform for underrepresented writers in Wales.
Nasia Sarwar-Skuse is a writer and PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Swansea University. She has been working as a creative writing facilitator for three years and is passionate about the presence of authenticity in literature by ethnic voices and its intersections with diaspora, gender, and memory. Nasia was awarded the Writers’ Bursary by Literature Wales in 2019. Her work has appeared in a number of publications.