Projects
Tirwedd (Landscape)
Tirwedd (Landscape)
Tirwedd tells the story of Deio, a boy in his bedroom, absorbed in digital games, while the extraordinary Welsh landscape outside his window goes unseen.
This experimental immersive project transforms that tension: VR mixed reality places audiences in his shoes, AR scans bring mountains and quarries into his room, and projection mapping turns quarry walls into playable worlds. Fran Wen’s young company will test these prototypes, enriching the immersive design and gameplay storytelling.
Experiment
£20,000
Aims of the project
This project is beyond early exploration but not yet ready for large-scale delivery. Experiment funding allows us to prototype specific immersive elements before committing to a full production.
At the heart of Tirwedd is a simple image, a boy at his desk, bathed in the glow of a computer screen, while the vast mountains of North Wales rise just beyond his window. He escapes into digital landscapes, forgetting the extraordinary one he already inhabits. The project asks: how can immersive technology help us reconnect with the land beneath our feet?
Fran Wen has long used theatre to tell youth-centred stories. With Tirwedd, that practice evolves into immersive arts, blending myth, memory, and place. The audience becomes Deio, stepping into his room before walls dissolve into quarry landscapes. This shifts Fran Wen’s artistic practice long-term, not just this one project, bringing immersive approaches will change how we work with young people.
Three prototypes will explore this transformation:
- VR Mixed Reality Experience: Audiences embody Deio, controlling a character who reacts to real landscapes, blurring game mechanics with lived geography.
- AR/Photogrammetry Mapping: Drone-captured landscapes reappear inside Deio’s bedroom on stage through projection and AR overlays, collapsing inside and outside into one shared space.
- Projection-Mapped Quarry Gameplay: Quarry walls become interactive canvases, where myth and play are layered onto stone through light, sound, and movement.
- Fran Wen’s young company will co-create and test each strand. Together, we will test how immersive storytelling can move from bedroom isolation to landscape connection as well as findings being shared with Welsh theatre networks.
Meet the artist
Frân Wen
Frân Wen is a multidisciplinary Welsh language theatre company who blur boundaries to create bold work that lives in theatres, towns and cities, rural landscapes and digital platforms – always evolving to reflect the world around us. Rooted in co-creation and artistic experimentation, we are based in Nyth (Nest) our brand-new creative home in the heart of Bangor, North Wales. We exhilarate, challenge and entertain using theatre as a powerful tool to brighten today and help shape a better tomorrow. We bring artists and communities together to uncover the stories that matter.
- We foster innovation through fearless cross-art form collaboration.
- We champion ambition to make relevant and defiantly original work.
We are passionate about
- Connecting people from all walks of life
- Young people’s energy, ideas and vision for the future
- Celebrating Welsh language and Welsh culture
- Sustainability and Climate justice
- Creating experiences of the highest quality for audiences in North Wales, nationally and internationally
