Wales in Venice
Sownd: Manon Awst + Dylan Huw
This short film introduces Sownd, the project representing Wales at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2026, one of the world’s most significant contemporary art events.
Sownd is an immersive installation exploring connections between landscape, language and material. The artists bring together natural elements from north Wales and the Venetian lagoon, combining them with sound, sculpture and text to create a single, interconnected environment shaped by the historic venue. Alongside the Venice exhibition, live events in Wales invite audiences to experience the landscapes behind the work directly.
The title Sownd is a Welsh word meaning both “stuck” and “structurally sound”. This reflects the project’s focus on fragile, shifting environments and the resilience found within them.
The work is informed by research into peatlands in Wales—wet, unstable landscapes that hold deep layers of history, memory and cultural meaning. By connecting these sites with Venice, the artists highlight shared ecological challenges and the ways places hold and transform stories over time.
Sownd's layering of material histories includes its centring of cultural forms embedded in the Welsh language. Drawing on the country's rich legacies of live and collective practice, including cynghanedd poetry and site-specific performance, the project creates an “architecture of entanglement,” sculpting and sticking together materials, sounds and words.
View more about the project and previous exhibition at Oriel Myrddin here.
Cymru yn Fenis / Wales in Venice is commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales with support and collaboration from the Welsh Government, Wales Arts International and the British Council. Sownd [ar safle] / Sownd [on site] is further supported by the Colwinston Charitable Trust and Art Fund.
