Projects
The Hag/Gwrach
The Hag/Gwrach
The woods are ancient libraries. Celtic rainforests in Wales and Cornwall are rare, endangered, and irreplaceable. They hold biodiversity, myth, folk memory.
Much of this was silenced and burned during the witch trials, when women and other marginalised individuals who worked with flora, fungi, and trees to heal and care were branded dangerous and erased to ash.
Hag/Gwrach is an artist-led R&D project exploring how immersive technologies can deepen audience connection to landscape, myth and erased ecological knowledge. Through woodland prototyping in Wales and Cornwall, the project tests how spatial audio, AR and responsive environments can reveal hidden stories within living forest landscapes.
Rooted in a cross-Celtic collaboration between Wales and Cornwall, the project centres on the figure of the Hag/Gwrach — a mythic presence connected to land, memory and suppressed histories of healing and ecological wisdom.
Experiment
£20,000
Aims of the project
This phase focuses on experimentation and prototyping. We are testing how augmented reality, spatial audio and responsive light can sit gently within fragile ecosystems, enhancing perception rather than dominating it.
Early woodland encounters will invite small groups to walk, listen and discover — with sound emerging from fungi signals, projections flickering across bark, and digital presences revealing hidden narratives embedded in the landscape.
Through this process, Hag/Gwrach explores how immersive tools can deepen attention to place and how technology might amplify rather than overwhelm the living world. The research will inform the development of a future large-scale immersive work rooted in landscape, community and ecological storytelling.
The Hag/Gwrach calls you into the woods. A sentient landscape alive with ancient memory, where fungi sing, trees breathe, and knowledge buried by witch-hunts flickers back to life.
Meet the artists
Hannah McPake
Co-writer and Co-director
she/her
Hannah is an actor, director and playwright exploring myth, ecology and immersive performance with technologies. In 2013 she co-founded award-winning gig theatre company Gagglebabble. She’s Associate Artist of Theatr Iolo and Yello Brick. And took part in BBC Writers Room Welsh Voices 2023.
Hannah currently has plays in development with Sherman Theatre, Theatr Iolo and Hijinx Odyssey. Recipient of the Radical Creatures Commission from National Theatre Wales, BALLOON GIRL goes into production Autumn 2026.
Her work is often inspired by history or reimagining’s of well-known stories, it puts female characters squarely centre stage, usually playful and comic but unafraid to delve into the dark side of life, big-hearted and quietly political.
DAUR
DAUR is an interdisciplinary arts and theatre company creating immersive, site-responsive work rooted in landscape, myth and experimentation. Founded by Mydd Pharo, it blends live performance, design, sound and emerging technologies to create responsive environments where audiences
Mydd Pharo
Co-writer, Co-director and Designer
They/them/he/him
Exploring myth, ecology & immersive performance with Technologies.
Joshua Pharo
Lighting, Video and Immersive Designer
he/him
Joshua is a lighting and video designer working across theatre, dance, opera, music, film and installation. His work explores how light, projection and emerging technologies shape audience experience and storytelling. He has collaborated with companies including WildWorks, Headlong and Belarus Free Theatre, with work presented at venues including the National Theatre, Young Vic, Royal Court, Donmar Warehouse, Chichester Festival Theatre and the Royal Opera House. His work frequently embeds projection and responsive light within landscape and non-traditional settings
