“Tai a mynyddoedd” (that translates as “houses and hills”). is the culmination of three years of research into how heritage can contribute to identity: Welsh heritage, Welsh clothing, Wales’ relationship with England and how class and gendered roles have contributed to the country’s patriotism, yet, English controlled identity. As the artist Crimson DM Lily states, these questions reflect on “how ancestry, birthplace and heritage contributes to selfhood; why one desires to showcase, or hide, the culture and geography of one’s belonging.”
Photograph by Lily Ashrowan.
Image description: Three white women stand in Welsh countryside. It’s a wintery scene with hedgerows and trees different shades of brown. The grass is still green but it’s a slightly muted green. The people are wearing brightly coloured clothing. The left person is wearing a bright orange and green bra top and skirt with mesh undergarments. The middle person is in a textural triangular top and skirt which is bright green. The right person is in a jumpsuit which has different shades of greens and blues.
Three years ago, Crimson DM Lily was approached by a Welsh speaking post-punk band, Adwaith, to make costumes for their upcoming tour. As an English person who had a very basic knowledge of Welsh culture, DM Lily set out on a research journey, asking very straightforward questions: “Why do Welsh people have strong national pride? What makes Wales Wales? What is ‘Welshness’?”
The outcome of this research was a short experimental film, shot on location in Wales, with Adwaith wearing costumes made by the artist. The film was screened at Goldsmiths Cinema, in May 2024, with a talk and Q&A session.
Photograph by Lily Ashrowan. Outfit by Crimson DM Lily worn by Gillie.
Image description: A white woman is stood on a large, felled tree in the countryside. She is wearing a brightly coloured dress that is made of different chunky strips of knitted fabric that has been woven together. Each edge is frayed. The knitted strips depict imagery and text. Due to the fabric being cut up, it is hard to depict what the imagery and text is. The colours shown in the dress are bright blues and greens with hints of red and yellow text.
Photograph by Lily Ashrowan. Outfit by Crimson DM Lily worn by Heledd.
Image Description: A close up image of a white person stood against brown leaves and winter trees. They are wearing a bright blue long sleeved top. Over the top is a jumpsuit. One half of the jumpsuit is made from the same knitted fabric as Gillie: imagery and text is depicted. Here, one can make out Geese, and hills. The text on this half can’t be read as the fabric is cut up. The other half is comprised of small green strips with faint imagery, sewn together. Rough fraying edges and dangling neon threads are exposed.
Adwaith performs in Welsh and, as an English person, DM Lily had not been surrounded by any music sung in Welsh, prior to listening to the band. Speaking the Welsh language is so important to Welsh people as it is an obvious form of sustaining national identity and pride. Thus, keeping the language alive helps push the English rule away. It was, therefore, vital to include spoken Welsh verse in the film.
Within the film two poems are spoken: “Deilen” (or in English ‘Leaf’) by Gwyn Thomas and ‘Aros mae ‘r mynyddau mawr’ (or in English ‘What passes and endures’) by John Ceiriog Hughes. Both texts date from around the 1800s and expressed what DM Lily was finding to be a common theme in all of her research which is the prominence of landscape. According to the artist, Welsh people feel a strong emotional connection to their surrounding landscape. Even in Welsh urban areas you are never far from rugged hills and sublime scenery. John Ceiriog Hughes talks to ‘how the great mountains stay’ and ‘the language is not lost’. DM Lily hopes that Wales will always have its natural beauty and its language despite being so heavily associated and controlled by England. Gwyn Thomas’ poem summarises the transient beauty found in landscape, and hones in on the lifecycle of a leaf falling from the tree. “a bright flash – White-bellied or yellow It clowns, whirling with colours,” These bright pops of colour that you find within Welsh landscape are prevalent in the costumes and the film.
Photograph by Lily Ashrowan. Outfit by Crimson DM Lily worn by Hollie.
Image description: A white woman is stood amongst brown trees with brown leaves on the ground. She is wearing a dark green mesh top with a bright orange knitted bra over the top. On the bra is neon green scribbled drawings. From the bra smaller coloured ties wrap around her arms and end with triangular gloves on her hands. The gloves and sleeves are the same colour as the bra with abstract ‘scribbled drawing’ imagery. She wears a skirt made from the same fabric as shown in Gillie and Heledd’s outfits. Blue geese are depicted across a green hill like landscape with bright neon splodges. Yellow text is overlaid on this imagery. She wears bright green tights with matching green fluffy boots.
Photograph by Lily Ashrowan. Outfit by Crimson DM Lily worn by Gwen.
Image Description: A close up shot of a white person’s torso leant against a tree. They are wearing a crop top made from the same green stripped fabric in Heledd’s outfit. Small strips of green dyed fabric have been sewn together with raw edges showing. Over this is a triangular shaped top which is bright green with a thick, curly textured surface. It emulates moss. The same textured fabric has been tiered over one another to form her skirt.
Other words that impacted the research came from more contemporary sources such as Casi Wyn, who often describes her homeland with dialectical tensions: “Wales is vast and small. It’s inviting and shy.” These dialectical tensions DM Lily found in various things she was reading, watching, experiencing upon her visits to the territory and even when having conversations with Welsh people. The artist also point out that “Plenty of dialectical tensions are present throughout ‘Welshness’ be it Wales’ natural beauty and industrial history, signage being written in Welsh and English, or the bright fluorescent life of moss and lichen against barren trees. This is conveyed in the costumes and the making of the film.”
Adwaith contains three members: Heledd Owen, Hollie Singer and Gwenllian Anthony. For a short time they also gained a fourth member, Gillie, for whom a costume was also made but she doesn’t feature in the film. Each person has a totally unique style and yet they all come together to form Adwaith, which was essential to convey in their costumes. Possessing this dialectical tension of individual and together.
So why “Houses and Hills”? Upon the artist’s first visit to meet the band in Wales she noticed how one is often surrounded by dramatic scenery and there are always dashings of houses, whole housing estates, that are nestled really high up in the hills. She did a drawing of this, trying to reference the dialectical tensions of organic and synthetic. Man and Nature. She had never really seen this before, in Scotland, England or other European countries she’d travelled to. Occasionally seeing it on coast lines with holiday homes and hotels, in Wales these are just ordinary housing estates quite inland in ordinary towns. Every time she visited Wales and drove through the southern stretch of the country, she continued to notice these precarious houses perched within hills. To her, it encapsulated this longing of Welsh people to be tied to their landscape. The wonderful tensions inherent in Welsh identity: landscape and houses, individual and togetherness, and pride in the face of English rule.
Crimson DM Lily (Devon, 1998) is an artist living and working in South East London. She is a Constructed Textiles Tutor (Digital Knit) at Goldsmiths, University of London and received the RSA Grant (2023). Often Crimson will collaborate with musicians as she enjoys the dynamism this brings. Recent collaborations include the Welsh speaking, post punk band Adwaith, and London based punk band Thigh High.
