Manon Awst facts for kids
Manon Awst is a talented artist from Wales. She creates amazing sculptures, art installations (art you can walk through or around), and performances. Her art often explores ideas about where we live, who we are, and the natural world around us.
Manon grew up on Anglesey, an island in Wales. She studied architecture at Cambridge University. For ten years, from 2007 to 2017, she lived in Berlin, Germany, and worked with another artist named Benjamin Walther. Besides making art, Manon Awst is also a poet!
Contents
Manon Awst's Early Life and Education
,_2020.jpg)
Manon Awst grew up on Anglesey in North Wales. Welsh is her first language. She went to Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern for high school. After that, she studied architecture at Cambridge University.
In 2004, she won the Architecture Scholarship at the National Eisteddfod of Wales. This is a big festival in Wales that celebrates Welsh culture. After her studies, she moved to Berlin, Germany. There, she joined an art group called Pankof Bank. She worked with artist Simon Fujiwara and architect Sam Causer. They created projects like Pankof Bank Architects in London and Suppermarket for a festival called Deptford X in 2005.
Awst's Artistic Journey and Poetry
From 2006, Manon Awst worked as part of an artist team called Awst & Walther. They showed their art in famous places like the Boros Collection, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, and the National Museum Cardiff.
Between 2013 and 2015, she studied Artistic Research at the Royal College of Art in London. This is a special way of studying art by doing a lot of creative experiments. In 2015, she received a Creative Wales Award from the Arts Council of Wales. This award helped her set up her own art studio in Caernarfon, Wales.
Manon Awst is also known as a Welsh poet. She helped start a group of female poets called Cywion Cranogwen. She often takes part in poetry events like Y Talwrn and Ymryson y Beirdd.
Awst & Walther: A Creative Partnership
Manon Awst worked with German artist Benjamin Walther for more than ten years. They created many interesting and thought-provoking artworks together.
In 2009, the German Embassy in London asked them to create an art piece. It was to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Their artwork, called 'Work in Progress', was a huge wall made of ice. It was so big it even stopped traffic on Belgrave Square in London on November 9, 2009!
Major Art Installations and Exhibitions
In 2010, Manon Awst and Benjamin Walther received a special award called a Fellowship for Artists from the Henry Moore Foundation. This allowed them to be resident artists at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. They also became resident artists at Meetfactory in Prague, thanks to an award from the Goethe Institute.
Two of their art installations, Latent Measures and The Line of Fire, were shown in the second Boros Collection exhibition. This exhibition was held in a special bunker in Berlin from 2012 to 2016.
Other important artworks they created include Ground to Sky in Berlin. They also made Gap to Feed, a permanent art piece in Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin. This artwork was made using thousands of mussel shells. These shells were collected from the Menai Strait in North Wales.
They also have a permanent installation called Far and Wide at Nant Gwrtheyrn. This piece was first made for a special event at Barclodiad y Gawres on Anglesey.
In 2019, a book called Awst & Walther was published by Distanz Verlag. This book is a detailed look at all the sculptures and creative projects the artists made over ten years.
