The Little Cage

I was commissioned by Peak to create new work for the 2018 Abergavenny Food Festival as part of the Horsebox Residency programme. I worked with young people in Abergavenny and groups of adults in Brecon making hundreds of corn dollies to fill the horse box.

The time when the whole community headed to the fields to bring the harvest home is long gone but most people have memories of harvest celebrations in school, in churches and community halls.

The making of a “corn dolly” was an ancient custom and traditionally made from the last sheaf of corn to be harvested, where it was believed the corn spirit was hiding. The corn dolly was often ceremonially destroyed to represent the death of the old and the beginning of new growth in the spring.