Meadow Arts announces a major new commission with the artist David Blandy for BorderLands Year 3.

Working with local communities and schools in Kington, Presteigne and Kingston, David Blandy will co-create a tabletop game, exploring the layered history, mythology and movement of people across the English/Welsh border.

A major exhibition in summer/autumn 2027 will present the speculative landscape created by the participants, realised through the inimitable imagination of David Blandy.

BorderLands is a three-year project exploring borders locally and globally,  inspired by the English/Welsh border where Meadow Arts are based.

The Welsh Marches are landscapes shaped by movement. For thousands of years people have travelled through this region: prehistoric settlers, Roman soldiers following military roads, medieval communities living along contested frontiers, and contemporary travellers navigating modern infrastructure. The landscape is layered with journeys, crossings and encounters between diverse histories.

This project explores those histories of movement by working with people living in the area to co-create an immersive tabletop game. Together they will explore themes of identity, belonging and migration through the deep history of the Borderlands.

Drawing on archaeological research and local mythologies, participants will engage with objects and sites spanning prehistory to the present, including prehistoric lithics, Roman artefacts and landscapes such as Offa’s Dyke. These materials will act as imaginative portals: fragments through which participants will  consider who moved through this landscape, who settled, who left, and how stories persist across time.

The tabletop game will invite audiences to inhabit characters from different historical periods and collaboratively build a web of connections across centuries of movement through the Borderlands.

The game will be introduced through a public launch event in early 2027 where players can actively play the game and experience the narrative world created through the workshops. A digital version of the game with global reach will be launched online.  

A public exhibition in summer/autumn 2027 will present the world described by the project through an immersive installation.  Using printed environments, stand-up figures, text, audio and video, visitors will enter the speculative landscape created by the participants and encounter the layered histories developed during the workshops.

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Events: Roots & Relics game design workshop with David Blandy
Saturday 21 November & Sunday 22 November
Free to attend | All welcome | No experience needed | Booking essential

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Notes to Editors

David Blandy’s practice spans more than twenty years of socially engaged and site-responsive work. He is an artist, writer and game designer whose projects combine research, immersive play and collaborative storytelling.

David has extensive experience working with refugee and migrant communities. With Larry Achiampong he co-created FF Gaiden: Escape through workshops with Nottingham’s Women’s Cultural Exchange, collaborating with refugee women to explore migration and belonging. With PRAKSIS in Oslo he worked with paperless migrants and the organisation People in Limbo on a project examining identity and displacement.

His recent commission Commons for Film & Video Umbrella involved working with a young refugee actor to voice the perspectives of prehistoric objects from a museum collection, drawing parallels between material migration and lived experience.

He has direct experience of designing historically-grounded games. His game Diachronic, developed with archaeologists at the site of Troy, translated complex archaeological strata into an accessible narrative gameplay structure, using play to make layered histories tangible and emotionally resonant.

Much of his work engages with landscapes and histories, including research into Hadrian’s Wall and its global connections. David has significant experience collaborating with academics and heritage professionals to translate specialist research into meaningful public engagement.

Nominated for the Film London Jarman award with Larry Achiampong in 2018, he has exhibited & performed at venues nationally and worldwide, with solo shows at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton; Towner Gallery, Eastbourne; Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea; The Baltic, Gateshead; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Spike Island, Bristol; The Exchange, Newlyn; Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany. Blandy has also exhibited in museums internationally including at Art Tower Mito, Tokyo; Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Helsinki; Tate Modern, London; & MoMA PS1, New York.

Meadow Arts

Over 25 years Meadow Arts has evolved to become an important part of the creative landscape across Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire. Meadow Arts collaborates with highly regarded heritage organisations, historic sites, museums, universities, and public spaces to present contemporary art projects in unexpected, often rural places that encourage new ideas and expand horizons. 

Since 2001, Meadow Arts have worked with over 150 artists including Leah Gordon, Yinka Shonibare, Fiona Banner, Mat Collishaw, Pablo Bronstein, Heather and Ivan Morison, Marcus Coates, Shezad Dawood, Ryan Gander and Jasleen Kaur on new commissions, exhibitions and installations in a diverse range of places including Hardwick Hall, Croft Castle, Shrewsbury Museum & Galley, Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron, Hereford Cathedral, Hay Castle and the Herbert Museum, Coventry. 

Meadow Arts is an Arts Council England National Portfolio funded organisation presenting a regular programme of exhibitions, events, talks and workshops, which reach diverse audiences and engage with a wide range of participants in both towns and the countryside.

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For PR requests email: meadowarts@gmail.com

www.meadowarts.org

www.davidblandy.co.uk