The Lost Words

Oriel y Parc, St Davids, Pembrokeshire

2 July 2023 until spring 2024

The best-selling book The Lost Words will be brought to life at Oriel y Parc this year in an exhibition which explores the relationship between language and the living world, and of nature’s power to spark the imagination.

The touring exhibition, which is organised by Compton Verney, with Hamish Hamilton and Penguin Books, will bring together, for the first time the original artwork by Jackie Morris alongside the English language poems by Robert Macfarlane and Welsh language poems written by Mererid Hopwood. The exhibition will be fully bilingual in Welsh and English languages.

The award-winning book The Lost Words uses stirring spell-songs and eye-catching illustrations to reintroduce the fading faces of nature to our vocabularies and in turn, inspire us to join the fight to reverse their plight. The Welsh publication, Geiriau Diflanedig was published by Graffeg in 2019.

Amgueddfa Cymru is collaborating with Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority and Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park Authority and as well as seeing words and watercolours from the book on display at Oriel y Parc Gallery, there will also be an exhibition at Yr Ysgwrn in Gwynedd.

At Oriel y Parc in St Davids, specimens from the natural history collections of Amgueddfa Cymru will also be used to highlight the level of biodiversity loss and explain the work being done to try and arrest this decline.

A series of special events and activities will be held at Oriel y Parc and Yr Ysgwrn to encourage more people to discover more about Lost Words and use the spell-songs to conjure their own magic memories in nature.

The Lost Words will also be on display at Yr Ysgwrn in Trawsfynydd from 25 June 2023 until spring 2024.

For more information on this exhibition visit www.orielyparc.co.uk/the-lost-words.

For more information about The Lost Words book visit www.thelostwords.org.