Vivian Ross-Smith

With lots of appreciation for the many stones that make up my practice, I have been awarded ACW Create funding for my ongoing project, dyke. Building on practices of traditional skill-sharing, community-building, performance and queering landscape. This funding will allow me to learn dry-stone walling, participate in residencies and durational conversations with a network of artists and organisations, and have much needed R+D studio time. I will share outcomes in two new solo shows, which will be accompanied by performances, talks and workshops. V excited to go forth for a lovely dykey time and potter about in notions of labour, resilience, and belonging within Welsh ecologies. Massive thanks to all the incredible folk who have supported this project, and to @celfcymruarts for the trust. Collaboration is key and each stone in my wall is massively respected x Excited to work further with: @cardiffmade @zoegingellart @foot.slope.soap @orielcanfas @eddie.ladd @notabrothel @celfcymruarts + more <3 Image: 35mm film photograph of Feely Dyke in Fair Isle, Shetland. Taken by Elly Reynolds-Feeney

🪨 New print: Dykes for Queer Resilience! 🪨 DYKE, noun, Scots: a wall made of stone DYKE, noun, slang: a term used to refer to a lesbian A bold + beautiful 5 colour Risograph print. Here to remind you that you are as solid as a rock, my friend. You can get through anything x Limited edition of 50 prints, signed and dated, available now in my shop, tap the image or follow link in bio Print reads: build and rebuild as many times as it takes until you are as strong as a great big dyke Thanks to @wennadesigns for all the riso support 🖤 #queerresilience #risograph #dyke #printmaking

Artist Highlight VIVIAN ROSS-SMITH @vrosssmith CARTOGRAPHIES OF CARE: WOMEN | LAND | ART To celebrate the opening of Cartographies of Care exhibition @cassinellimills are hosting a very special screening of ‘Refinishing’ (2025) for the opening view only 23 May 2.30 - 5pm; a beautiful, careful film not to be missed. No booking necessary. Join us @southcombebarn in partnership with @karstgallery Vivian (she/they) is an artist working in a squishy place between care, ecology and tactility. Her site-specific performances, textiles and objects draw on queering practices and reflect their islander identity. Often, Vivian uses her practice to build community around an idea or place, seeking collaboration with other artists, rural communities, materials, and landscape. ‘Refinishing’ forms part of Vivian’s current project: dyke, ‘an ongoing collaborative making and presentation project that queers landscapes through the practice of dry stone walling. Rooted in the dual cultural resonance of the word dyke - meaning a dry stone wall in Scots and a reclaimed queer slur - the project considers labour, resilience, and belonging within Welsh and Scottish ecologies through performance, traditional skill-sharing, and community-building.’ Vivian has recently been awarded ACW Create for further R&D in partnership with @celfcymruarts . The themes of ‘Refinishing’ weave their way across Southcombe gardens. Vivian’s situated knowledge expressed through materiality and performance expands understanding of experiences in, and with, the land and countryside. ‘By queering ecological, linguistic, and social boundaries, dyke reframes drystone walls as sites of care, regeneration, and connection rather than division’ (Ross-Smith). Boundaries, whether mapped or built, become connectors; borders become thresholds; and notions of re/building take the form of care as opposed to control 1&2. Refinishing (still from film), 2025 V. Ross-Smith 3.V. Ross-Smith, Feely Dyke in Fair Isle, Shetland, 📸 Elly Reynolds-Feeney. 4.Saturdays at Rotherslade (Ladies Cove), 2024 📸 Ren Faulkner 5 📸 Jack Moyse Exhibition 24 May - 7 June Opening Times Thurs - Sun 10.30 - 3pm Curated by @cassinellimills

Hot, sticky, 35mm, latex memories of last summer spent on residency at @g39cardiff with @sgor_score @tactilebosch - forgotten on a roll of film for almost a year

Things I’m really into atm include: - Muddy boots - Phones in performance - Legs hanging in the air - Pausing in peak tension before the snap occurs Massive thanks to @aberystwythtfts for recently hosting us @sgor_score lot in the Reading Landscapes Residency - deep diving into the reeds with my fellow obsessives was beyond a dream. And also to @pennyhallas and @elysiumswansea for providing the most amazing artwork and space to just start and see where we end up. Trust in performance is so huge, trusting the moment, trusting the materials, trusting the space, trusting the folk I work alongside. And when it inevitably cracks and crumbles, rebuilding and making new. Photos all by @cheye.photo for Fragility of Idylls performance at @elysiumswansea as part of @pennyhallas solo show ReSighting on until 28 March All other content is R+D moments of play from Reading Landscapes Residency with @tesswoof @beth.greenhalgh.11 @tim_mrtn_jones + @pennyhallas hosted by @aberystwythtfts @aberystwyth.university

We are performing as @sgor_score tomorrow at Aberystwyth University’s Theatre Department Rehearsal Room 1 at 10am. tickets in bio. Horizons - Grass - Snapping - Prickly - Bellies - Darkness - Crumpled - Form - Enchantment - Leaning - Cleavage - Collapse - Re-climatisation - Boots @aberystwythtfts / @aberystwyth.university / @prifysgol.aberystwyth / @aberystwythdinasllen Yn dathlu Dinas Llên gyntaf Cymru – Aberystwyth Ceredigion. Celebrating Wales’ first City of Literature – Aberystwyth Ceredigion Mae’r Cyfnod Preswyl Darllen y Dirwedd yn rhan o raglen ehangach o weithgareddau sy’n cael eu cynnal yn ystod mis Chwefror a mis Mawrth 2026 i ddathlu cydnabyddiaeth Aberystwyth Ceredigion fel Dinas Llên a rhan o rwydwaith byd-eang UNESCO o Ddinasoedd Creadigon. The Reading Landscapes Residency is part of a wider programme of activities taking place in February and March 2026 to celebrate Aberystwyth Ceredigion’s recent recognition as a Dinas Llên | City of Literature, and part of UNESCO’s worldwide network of Creative Cities.

SGÔR will undertake The Reading Landscapes Residency with Aberystwyth University, culminating in a live performance on Fri 6 March, 10am in The Foundry Studio. All welcome. Across this residency, SGÔR members will draw from their wide ranging individual artistic practices to performatively interrogate both known and unknown perspectives on Welsh landscape, conducting artistic investigations into histories and ecologies often overlooked. Central to our process will be an inquiry as to how these elements critically play out across a multiplicity of bodies, rocks, rivers, text, fields, ears, and how these can be used in performance to provoke consequences that reach for something as yet unknown.  This residency is part of a wider programme of activities taking place in February and March 2026 to celebrate Aberystwyth Ceredigion’s recent recognition as a Dinas Llên | City of Literature, and part of UNESCO’s worldwide network of Creative Cities. Participating SGÔR Artists; Beth Greenhalgh @beth.greenhalgh.11 Tim Martin-Jones @tim_mrtn_jones Tess Wood @tesswoof Penny Hallas @pennyhallas Vivian Ross-Smith @vrosssmith @aberystwythtfts @aberystwyth.university @prifysgol.aberystwyth @aberystwythdinasllen 📸 @cheye.foto (slightly altered/twisted on side by sgor)

This performance was such a love letter to Abertawe and particularly the Kardomah 😋 huge thanks to @kit_edwards for capturing it, and the whole of @swanseaperformance , so beautifully. 🧁 Performance by @vrosssmith + @esylltesylit At @glynnvivian for @swanseaperformance Delicious photos by @properdaf

Bog bodies 🌱 It’s very simple really. To feel care, we just need to gather, gently chat, walk in the squelching land, eat soup, and make, side-by-side. To share our stories and skills. Marvel at each others materials and ideas. Give space to healing, to hurt, to happiness. I’ve had the pleasure of being artist in residence with @natur_am_byth researching a spider and a bog. It has nourished my practice, and my understanding of Swansea. A big part of my residency was gathering a queer community to reflect on belonging, care and offerings. Deep friendships have sprouted from this project, the bog has become a point of return. More about the project on my website 🕷️ All photos taken on my mams old 35mm Ricoh camera This work is made possible from support by @natur_am_byth @natreswales @heritagefunduk @celfcymruarts @welshgovernment @buglife_ict @addo_creative

How we all doing? I’m feeling pretty lost in the heaviness of this strange world. As ever though, I’m turning to community and glorious natural places in search of hope and joy and ease. 🌱 Score made as Artist in Residence with @natur_am_byth at Crymlyn Bog, Swansea. Supported by @natreswales

Exploring duality, friendship, family and feasting, Vivian and Esyllt explored their individual connection to Swansea as either their chosen or birth home at Swansea Performance Weekend. Gathering around a portable wooden trolley, they munched their way around the Glynn Vivian honouring the artwork and squirty cream as they passed it. @vrossmith @esylltesylit 
 Swansea Performance Weekend was generously funded by Arts Council Wales @celfcymruarts Photos by @cheye.foto

2025 was a year of putting stuff on. It saw me working closer than ever with the gorgeous artists, makers and thinkers around me - I love you doers and dreamers with all my might. So many performances and events and outward facing joys happened last year. It was active, busy and energised. My mood shifting into this new dance around the sun is quiet, studio based, learning + listening, hanging out and sharing. Shout if you want to be part of it, let’s skill share? Thanks to all these amazing folks + orgs + many more who collaborated and supported me with space, time, ideas, fun and funding in 2025: @sgor_score @swanseaperformance @hollyslingsby @celfcymruarts @natur_am_byth @glynnvivian @lindersterling @gillyfoxdotcom @g39cardiff @elysiumswansea @onyourfacecollective @museumwales @freelandsfoundation @cardiffmade @carmarthenschoolofart @katherineamurphy @dcadundee @properdaf @esylltesylit @cwmrag ❤️‍🔥