The Pool is a look at the North Waleian landscape as it is today. Steeped in mining and quarrying history, the lasting legacy is apparent. Driving the winding roads between villages offers one glimpses of the decimated hilltops, bleeding grey and purple stone. Penrhyn was once the largest operational quarry in the world, ultimately putting wales on the map. ‘For those in the villages who saw men with broken bones carried down from the mountains, who felt the constant quake of explosions, it might have seemed like the quarrymen were waging war up in the clouds.’ Today, the landscape is different. Left with scars of the large-scale workings, extensive tunnels and spoil heaps litter the hillsides. They overshadow everything in view. The giant purple-grey mass of Dinorwic has leered over Llanberis for hundreds of years. It is a very specific human intervention that has resulted in something almost otherworldly. Within the work, I take a look at the quarries themselves, inside and out, the adjacent villages built around their expansion and the people that reside there now. Alongside this I look at the more ancient history of the place, the Arthurian landscapes of Dinas Emrys, Llyn Afanc, Yr Wyddfa E.T.C. which live alongside these dark masses, often harmoniously. It is a comprehensive study of a landscape that has gone through massive changes at the expense of the hills.