Artist Jill Impey is bringing her Arts Council England-funded project to Dragon Theatre, Barmouth.

There will be two performances of The Weather Report on Tuesday, 25 October.

It includes a 14-minute film screening in a two-hour creative engagement with the film maker and artist, performing as her fictional historical character, Lucida.

Lucida is a mental health nurse just returned from New Zealand in 1948. Jill uses this character to take people out of their ‘every day’ and consider how a sense of connection impacts on mental health and thoughts of ‘home’. Lucida offers a light-hearted, respectful approach to emotive and often serious subject matter. As we know, sometimes it’s easier to simply talk about the weather.

The subtitled short film, funded by Arts Council England in 2020/21, is a powerful and moving record of the thoughts and voices of women from coastal, immigrant and creative communities (in England in 2021 and New Zealand in 2019). They explore their feelings about the weather, the sea, migration, colonisation, notions of connection and what it means to be ‘A Good Ancestor’.

The Weather Report offers visitors the opportunity to take inspiration from the film and engage with a creative process of gathering and sharing wisdom.

Lucida will guide participants through a range of creative activities, inviting them to:

• Explore seashells and other natural objects through touch and drawing.

• Consider how you connect to the world by sharing thoughts and feelings.

• Make postcards, poems and collage

• Find new ways of connecting and considering what it is to be ‘A Good Ancestor’.

Jill’s working process is to make new recordings in response to her films and workshops. These in-turn create new artworks to be shared.

Taking part in recordings is entirely voluntary and all permissions are gathered in line with good practice.

The film and workshops are suitable for anyone aged eight and above.

Jill has worked with a wide range of people in this project, from school children and parents in Plymouth to Age UK in Plymouth, Shropshire Supports Refugees, adults at an arts centre in Raglan in New Zealand, mixed audiences at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth and the National Maritime Museum in Auckland, New Zealand.