Alix Edwards
Saint Laundry, Fallen (A Song) From Whence I Came Merthyr Poor Law Union Alix’s multi-disciplinary practice uses site visits and research to uncover the hidden, harsh realities inflicted upon women throughout history. Alix’s current project Saints, Sinners and Stories (supported by the Arts Council of Wales) delves into the histories of the ‘fallen women’ of rural Wales, shamed and sent away after falling pregnant. “Through my research I have found the Welsh valleys to be anything but ‘green and pleasant’, as ‘big city’ values that came with ‘progress’ and ‘industrialisation’ encroached upon and then became embedded in traditionally practical and tolerant rural culture. The Welsh practice of bundling, in which unmarried couples slept in the same bed as an accepted part of courtship, was replaced by a far less tolerant attitude towards sex outside the societal norm of marriage. The shame was so great that most families abandoned their pregnant daughters who were sent to a variety of institutions, until the scandal passed or sometimes for years, or the rest of their lives, ranging from workhouses to lunatic asylums, which are documented in these photographs. The images are taken in a sense of psychogeography and seeks to tell the story of the harsh reality these women faced against the beautiful rural valley backdrop, that we tend to romanticise now (particularly as visually it’s recovered from the traces of the coal industry). The shame continues now but in a different way: the majority of these ‘institutions’ that upheld moral values have fallen into disrepair, crumbled to the ground, been repurposed as luxury flats or have been demolished to make way for bigger, better institutions like hospitals and in one case a prison.”