Talks & Walks

Shags and Ducks and Rock’n’Roll

Dr Brian Briggs is a conservationist and musician on a lifelong quest to tune into the natural world. He is both a manager of an internationally important nature reserve in Wales, and the singer/songwriter for the band Stornoway. Brian will play a selection of amazing bird songs from his Avian Jukebox, and teach you how to identify some common British birds from their songs and calls. He will share fascinating secrets of bird communication and talk about the changing soundscapes of our natural environment, and describe how the sounds of nature have influenced his songwriting as frontman of the band Stornoway!

Dr Leah Salter and Julia Evans are co-directors of The Centre for Systemic Studies The Family Institute, Wales. Their talk will explore how we learn and who we learn with and from, in an ever-evolving, intra-connected, more-than-human world! They see learning as a social activity and are interested in how human and beyond-human systems interact to create learning communities. Delve into this on our opening Friday 👐

Systemic practitioners Leah Salter, Paul Price and Andre van Wyk will be hosting a “warm data lab” workshop, centered in ecosystemic practices and community conversations. A space where learning is relational and interdependency is fostered within group conversation, generating new understandings about complex human relationships and beyond! Join them looking through a number of lenses… 🔬

🔮 Professional teller of traditional tales Daniel Morden joins our festival for the first time this year! Join him in the Mabinogi world as he explores nature and poetry through the iconic story of Taliesin… He is a fantastic, renowned storyteller, author and podcaster, also found in The Devil’s Violin project with Sarah Moody and Olly-Wilson Dickson from trio Alaw! 🔮

🌊 Leanne is one of the original founders and current CEO of Project Seagrass, as well as named one of the BBCs top 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world! In her talk, she explores what we can do to help against the destruction of native seagrass meadows and to protect what’s left and put back some of what has been lost… 🌊

New to the festival, wild swimmer and poet Katrina Naomi shares her poetry and experience of swimming every day for a year in Battery Rocks, Cornwall! Her collection of poems is a thoughtful meditation on nature, risk, swimming and the sea; encountering a wide range of topics including issues of fear, strength, vulnerability, climate emergency and self realization 🏊

Explorer, writer and presenter Will Millard, brings you ‘The Magic of Water’ – a children’s talk all about the magical beings that inhabit our freshwater environments. He will be bringing tanks with live specimens (native & tropical) and telling the story of what lives in our watery world and why it matters! 🐠

Filkin’s Drift are not only incredible musicians, but they are also making a change in the world! Come watch and listen to their journey about walking the Welsh coastline to combat sustainable gigging, all while fundraising for Live Music Now. They have lots to share and lots of supportive followers by their side 👣

Phil Cope is a writer, photographer and poet, with a series of groundbreaking books published by Seren and Parthian on the oldest music, holy wells and sacred springs! Phil’s talk will share some of his poems with us and maybe encourage some new ones to be written ✍️

Mike Parker is a writer and broadcaster based in mid Wales whose travel writing takes him all over Europe! His latest publication ‘All The Wide Border’ explores the Wales-England border – as a line on the map, an ongoing history, a thing in our heads and as something that roared so unexpectedly into focus in the pandemic 🌍

Head of the Cardiff University Otter Project (CUOP), Elizabeth Chadwick’s research focuses on freshwater aquatic systems, particularly the Eurasian otter and British amphibians! Using the otter as a model species, she addresses fundamental questions about population biology and freshwater systems 🦦