What if we declare that Pontypridd is a Nature Reserve? What would that mean? What would that look like? How would we learn about and protect nature here?
In the beginning we were just a funny social media meme - an idea, a what if, a prompt to see things differently. People kept sending messages to ask where we were based.
Thanks everyone for believing in us!
River Walk with Gareth Edge of South East Wales Rivers Trust
Butterflies, Bees and Beetles Walk with Liam Olds
Inviting young people to share their ideas and help build the project - we started the NATUR Map here and experimented with making seed paper.
We are collecting stories of interesting nature finds around Pontypridd, share your story with our socials and we will add it to the map.
Catrin and Anne-Mie had lots of fun creating different versions of the logo.
We joined forces with the Europe wide Mobile Learning Communities project and let a youth group in Athens set us some challenges. The first one was to calculate our Carbon Footprint and challenge Pontypridd to reduce its Carbon footprint in 2023.
This time we joined forces with Coleg y Cymoedd's young friends of the earth to complete another challenge from the Greek youth group - Go for a nature walk and record the biodiversity.
Scan the code to see our biodiversity photos.
The project needed some guidance from a youth perspective so we advertised for an intern. All of the candidates were great - but ultimately Rhi captured our hearts and imaginations.
Using footage from Pontypridd, youth forum members created funny voiceovers with a serious message - nature is all around us, Pontypridd is a Nature Reserve.
Catrin embarked on a series of artistic conversations with young people, walking in nature and making note of key words or naming nature in chalk.
The youth forum got together online with Angela and Rhi to plan out how to engage new members and come up with ideas for activities.
Catrin and the youth forum invited the community to become Ponty Protectors at Shoni’s Pond and Barry Sidings by Balsam Bashing - a fun way to protect the valuable biodiversity of local habitats.
All of that bashed balsam needed somewhere to go so Catrin ran willow basket making workshops with local youth groups. The baskets were placed at Barry Sidings and Shoni's Pond.
We helped turn Ponty blue for dementia.
Working with Dan from Growth Mind and Thrive we came up with a plan for engaging more young people. This consisted of a 3 tiered approach including outreach sessions at existing youth clubs such as YEPS, public activities and events and work mentoring the core group to become avocates.
Anne-Mie worked with lots of local YEPS groups to introduce the project and create nature letters for a NATUR ffont.
Anne-mie learned how to make sculptures from fungi, using a mould and hemp substrate colonised with Reishi (G. Lucidum) cultures.
Pond dipping and river sampling at Shoni’s pond with @rhonddariverforall and Gareth Edge south east wales rivers trust
Angela has been working with young people, collecting words and poems and ideas about a conversation with a tree which she used as the data to create Tree-bot.
Balsam bashing and generally supporting Pontypridd Green Week
Anne-Mie organised a fungi sculpture workshop. We explored how to make moulds and how to ‘grow’ an object. We used colonised hemp substrate with Reishi (G. Lucidum) cultures, a biomaterial that can be composted at the end of its life.
Youth forum took advantage of a sunny day to exchange eco-books and interview each other about what NATURponty means.
Alice transcribed our youth forum interviews and made these gorgeous frames for our forum member profiles.
A thank you to everyone involved so far.
Engaging with the young people in our community to introduce the maniffesto and the NATUR ffont.
You can download the font from our website and use it for yourself!
Each letter was made by young people during workshops across Pontypridd.
We tasted vegan food to encourage everyone to introduce more plant-based dishes to our weekly diets, and Lynne Boddy, Professor of Fungal Ecology at Cardiff University gave an exciting online talk about The Amazing Hidden Kingdom.
Catrin worked with photographer Lucy Purrington and the youth forum to make stunning images of nature carnival masks they have created. All will be revealed in our exhibition in January...
Following on from Chalk&Talk we took a deeper dive into some of the topics important to the young people we work with. Humans are part of nature and these humans care about expressing themselves through their art, about race, gender, LGBTQIA+ rights and recognition, disability, neurodiversity, accessibility and how our activism for nature can be transectional.
We were delighted to be involved in Tŷ Un Nos on the Common. We invited young people to illustrate and comment on the youth manifesto for nature.
Anne-Mie worked with youth forum member Lucie Powell to explore the idea of the 'Mycelium Entity' and what it stands for:overarching - spiritual, protecting nature and all living organisms in Pontypridd.
We can't wait for you to meet the mycelium entity at our exhibition in January.
We met with youth groups and members of the youth forum to help put the final touches on the maniffesto. You can see the final piece at our exhibition in January
In a super busy session the youth forum collaborated with Poet Rufus Mufasa to create a sound piece for the mycelium entity. They also made exciting plans for the future including fundraising to print a Welsh language version of the Maniffesto and baking some vegan goodies.
Our exhibition reflecting on events, talks and workshops by NATURponty - the Pontypridd Nature Reserve project - a participatory art project that aims to engage young people in discussions around biodiversity and climate change, and playing with possibilities for sustainable living side-by-side with nature through creative activities.
