The latest exhibition from We Feed The UK celebrates a trail-blazing intergenerational nature restoration and regenerative farming project unfolding at the Penpont Estate in the Bannau Brycheiniog, Wales.
Award-winning photographer Andy Pilsbury has spent six months visiting and photographing Penpont and the partnership of local young people, landowners, farmers, ecologists and charity Action for Conservation that is bringing biodiversity back to more than 500 acres of land while continuing to produce high-quality food and honour Welsh farming traditions.
The Penpont Project Partnership combines the energy of youth with the experience of age to respond to climate change, food security and biodiversity loss in the Welsh uplands; a context in which nature restoration and farming have, wrongly, been depicted as in opposition to one another.
Since 2019 the project has welcomed hundreds of young people and community members to Penpont to plant more than 10,000 native trees, restore 1.5km of hedgerows, institute conservation grazing across 80 acres, restore lost wetlands and establish new habitats for otters, barn owls, newts, grass snakes, and more.
In this special exhibition, Andy’s beautiful images of life on the land are complemented by the lyrical Welsh poetry of Ifor-ap-Glyn, former National Poet for Wales, and paintings by renowned artist and Penpont resident Robert MacDonald.
Northumberland’s Stuart Johnson, Soil Farmer of the Year 2023 and the subject of We Feed The UK’s November exhibition said: “We Feed The UK is important in getting positive stories to the public – the current vilification of farmers needs to stop. There are small pockets of us trying to be better, which We Feed The UK can help the consumer see and understand, whilst also offering hope to farmers stuck in an imperfect system. This project proves that there are other ways to do it that can not only enhance biodiversity and battle climate change, but also bring people together and improve financial performance.”
The exhibition is open to the public from June 22-23 at Penpont Estate, and October 22- November 18 at Found Gallery in Brecon, with the launch on June 20, with a press sneak preview of the exhibition between 11 am - 3 pm.