The baskets between carnival and lent

The Baskets Between Carnival and Lent is a new curatorial project by Lewis Prosser, currently in development for exhibition at Oriel Myrddin. It reimagines Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559) through craft, music, and performance.

Working with basketmakers from across Europe, the project will reinterpret and recreate all 24 baskets depicted in the painting.

The project asks how baskets, often overlooked as everyday objects, are in fact a unifying part of human life, and how, through observing functional crafts, we might better understand communities across time and culture.

In addition to basketry, the project brings together composers Max Syed Tollan and Francesca Simmons, who will create a musical score for each basket within the binary of Carnival and Lent. This approach gives voice to working-class material culture while tracing what craft knowledge survives, what is lost, and what can be reinvented.

Confirmed for exhibition from March to June 2027, the project will include live performances, workshops, and an education programme. It offers an accessible, tactile way to explore shared material and cultural heritage.

Delivered in partnership with Heritage Crafts, the Basketmakers’ Association, and the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers, the project is gratefully funded by Arts Council Wales.