The Walls Have Ears & Regarding Wrecks

Developed during my residency at Penrhyn Castle with the National Trust, this work responds to the richly carved library interior, an environment shaped as much by craftsmanship as by surveillance.

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Carved into the corners of the wood-panelled room, a series of human and beast-like heads silently observe the space. Originally a subtle assertion of the maker’s presence, these figures act as quiet witnesses, fixed, watchful, and enduring.

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The Walls Have Ears & Regarding Wrecks reanimates these observers. Imagining what they might have absorbed over time, I recorded fragments of conversation from staff, volunteers, and visitors, capturing the living voice of the space. These utterances were then mapped back onto the carvings through projection, animating the static forms with contemporary dialogue.

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Delivered as a guided intervention, the work overlays moving image and sound directly onto the historic surfaces, collapsing past and present, object and voice, ornament and narrative.

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What was once decorative becomes sentient; what was silent begins to speak.