Our People

Alice Briggs is a socially engaged artist, facilitator, curator and producer, based in Mid Wales. Her interests are in co-design, community engagement, arts, wellbeing, social change and representation. She is currently working as project lead for Tir Canol – a community in Mid Wales that’s designing and providing positive outcomes for nature and people through our use of land and sea. She is a creative agent for Arts Council of Wales Lead Creative Schools Scheme, following a period as head of art at Amgueddfa Cymru, and several years as assistant curator at Ceredigion Museum.

Alice has over 20 years’ experience working in museums, heritage and the arts as a curator, but also as an arts and health coordinator and practitioner with a particular focus on older people and dementia sufferers. In the last five years she has been on a fellowship programme with Freelands, at g39 gallery and recently the Creative Community Fellowship with National Art Strategies, Derby Museum, and Bowes Museum. Additionally, Alice completed Clore Leadership Pulse (2021), During that time, Alice was artist in residence in the Elan valley, which led to a body of work showcased in a solo exhibition at Aberystwyth Arts Centre of her work in late 2023.

During the same period, Alice was working on an all-female collective research project called ‘Verges of the Rheidol’ in the hyper local context of the river valley where she lives, exploring and challenging the disconnect of people to the land. Her practice draws inspiration from connection to nature using community engagement, co-production and participatory practice of learning and sharing, setting up community projects and delivering through commissioned site-specific art, creative workshops, performance walks and research into local heritage.

www.alicebriggs.co.uk

Ben Porter is an ecologist, researcher and award-winning wildlife photographer from North Wales. Happiest in the mountains or the woods, Ben is an experienced ecological surveyor with a broad range of expertise in birds, moths, plants and more. His work aims to engage and inspire people’s interest in the natural world, and to inform how our use of the land or sea can be as sustainable and restorative as possible.

Ben has extensive experience of conservation work in Wales, and his formative years were spent on the windswept Isle of Ynys Enlli off Pen Llŷn, where his family managed the island’s farm for over a decade. This experience provided key insights into the challenges of conservation farming and how to work amidst a complex array of stakeholder interests – lessons which have been invaluable within land-based work in Wales since.

When not at work or in the woods, Ben enjoys fell running, cycling, bird watching and photography.

http://benporterwildlife.co.uk/

Rosie Slay is a community engagement specialist, events producer and project manager. She is currently working as engagement officer for Tir Canol. She loves to build connections, partnerships and systems which facilitate smarter, more holistic, ways of working.  

She works across arts, nature and heritage sectors, and is interested in designing creative projects and events which encourage communities to engage with their surroundings in a different way. Most recently she delivered a programme of engagement across the Elan Valley and the West Midlands for the Elan Links scheme.  

When she’s not working Rosie enjoys walking, cycling, yoga, sewing, baking, dancing and gardening.  

Victoria is a Finance and Administration Officer working with Tir Canol and RSPB.  

An Associate Chartered Accountant with a master’s degree in Finance and Investment from the University of South Wales, she has worked across charity and corporate sectors, supporting teams with financial coordination, reporting, and stakeholder communication.  

Passionate about clear communication and teamwork, she looks forward to contributing to the smooth running and continued success of the Tir Canol Project.  

When she’s not working, Victoria enjoys singing gospel music and dancing to afrobeat. She is naturally curious about people and enjoys paying attention to the small details that help people connect and work well together. 

Roz Corbett is a Market Gardener, researcher and organiser in the agroecology movement.  She is an experienced market gardener, working on farms for over 10 years, and currently works at a 1ha organic market garden just outside of Machynlleth growing a range of fruit and vegetables to then sell in the local area.  She is passionate about bringing about practical solutions to supporting farming and food system change as well as working iwth policy makers to support those changes.  She was on the Coordinating Group of the Landworkers’ Alliance from 2018-2026 and continues to be an active member of the Cymru branch of the LWA.  She also has a PhD looking at the Community Rights to Buy in Scotland and how the legislation has changed practices around agriculture and land access for new entrant farmers.    

In her spare time she loves being outdoors going on adventures in the sea and in the mountains.  She loves keeping bees and ducks, playing music and reading in the sunshine. 

Kirsti Davies is an artist and researcher born and brought up in the Dyfi area, with deep respect for our culture, language and landscapes here. Her work specialises in community-led projects that explore environmental and social topics through creativity.

Kirsti has designed interactive installations and immersive experiences for Kew Gardens, at Chelsea Flower Show, spent several years at the Eden Project as part of its creative “idea pollination” team, and delivered school programmes, workshops, events and community consultations across the country. Since 2022 she has led Gwymona – Gyda Gwymon Gallwn, a seaweed-focused research enquiry exploring coastal ecology, community knowledge and resilience.

Passionate about using shared culture and history to forge a stronger future, she works bilingually and collaboratively to reconnect people with place and each other.

www.gwymona.cymru

Sophie has a background in education, facilitation, training and developing programme content. She began her career in the public sector as a teacher in London, having grown up in rural Wales. Her teaching experience encompasses teaching in both large urban and small rural schools providing an insight into the challenges of very different communities. She went on to work for local government as an education advisor before joining a nationwide programme focussed on developing creative learning across Wales.

She has experience and an interest in convening conversations in complexity and encouraging others to collectively and consciously work in the unknown. She has recently completed an MPhil focussed on the use of talk and dialogue to generate rich and inclusive environments for learning. Her current work involves designing learning programmes, developing leadership support, listening to and capturing the experiences of young children to teenagers and of those who work with them and facilitating learning networks.  

When she’s not working Sophie enjoys building work, growing mainly vegetables and some flowers, drawing, reading and walking in woodlands, by the sea and in the mountains. She is an active director of Longwood Community Woodlands and Menter Silian. 

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