Hannan Jones
Artes Mundi and National Roman Legion Museum
Photo by Hicham Gardaf
BIO
Hannan Jones delves into ideas surrounding hybridity, language, cultural and social rhythms associated with migration, and psycho-geography. Across sound, sculpture, installation, and moving images, she seeks to foster ‘togetherness’ creating spaces to expand perspectives. A 2023 Oram Award winner and graduate of Glasgow School of Art, past projects - presented internationally - retrace free speech movements, highlight survival tactics, and examine ways to navigate and occupy public space to subvert economic and environmental precarity. Sonically, she uses improvisation, electronics, musique concrète, and analogue recordings, employing sampling and audio layering, to create alternate narratives and reclaim parallel histories.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
'A Frontier in Depth' investigates how shifting boundaries influence our understanding of identity and place. A trilogy of short films, beginning in the National Roman Legion Museum's subterranean archive, pictures displayed artefacts that embody multiple narratives, raising questions of how these items shape collective memory and fragmented histories. Expanding outward, the second film is driven by soundscapes around us, while the third focuses on the celestial - a tool for navigation and governance throughout time. New clay vessels created through community engagement prompt meaningful reflections on the present and future, while a culminating site-specific soundscape, merges past and present to amplify imaginary potentials.
QUOTE
“Perspective(s) resonated with my own diasporic background to allow navigation between histories of migration and Empire. Being Welsh and North African but raised in Australia, I am deeply engaged with social and cultural migration, placemaking and storytelling.”
WEBSITE
A FRONTIER IN DEPTH
A Frontier in Depth was on display at National Roman Legion Museum from 16 April – 31 July 2025. Working in collaboration with Artes Mundi, Hannan Jones created a trilogy of short films and a series of ceramic vessels that investigate how shifting boundaries influence our understanding of identity and place.
The first film began in the Museum’s subterranean archive using pictures of displayed artefacts that embodied multiple narratives, raising questions of how these items shape collective memory and fragmented histories.
Expanding outward, the second film was driven by soundscapes around us, while the third focused on the celestial – a tool for navigation and governance throughout time.
A limited-edition marbled vinyl of A Frontier in Depth is available to purchase and includes photographic inserts, spoken word by Nat Raha and commissioned texts in Welsh and English by Nat Raha (Terrural Memoria) and Philippa Lovatt (Oscillations across time and space). Purchase here.
Collaborating with members of the local communities in Caerleon and Newport, a series of ceramic vessels were created, embodying reflections on the present and future to encourage visitors to critically engage with the past and its ongoing impact today.
