Monmouthshire artist, Aisling Edwards, will debut Mark Time - Epynt 85 Mylnedd - an MoD Landscape Project - to Cardiff and Berlin at BayArt in Cardiff and Berlin as part of In Between Edges, a two-person exhibition with internationally recognised artist, Dafna Talmor.

Hosted by Ffotogallery and curated by Tudor Rhys Etchells, the exhibition forms part of Ffoto Cymru, Wales’ International Photography Festival. It opens with a public preview on Saturday 3rd October from 4-5pm and continues until 7th November.

In 2024, Edwards approached a senior military figure at The Irish Consulate Cardiff with a direct question: how could she gain access to a Ministry of Defence training ground to photograph under ecology, sustainability and land management?

That question led to the production of Mark Time - a fifteen month landscape observation project on MoD Sennybridge, a 31,000-acre British and NATO training area on the Epynt plateau.

Mark Time does not record military spectacle, instead it examines “land in rehearsal”: terrain repeatedly prepared, disturbed, repaired and reset so that conflicts taking place elsewhere can be rehearsed.

The photographs follow tracks, woodblocks, military infrastructure, fragments of debris and former farm buildings left by the rural community displaced when the plateau was requisitioned by the War Office in 1940. Mark Time considers what landscape remembers when ecology, rural history and military preparation occupy the same ground.

Throughout production, only a small circle in the art industry knew Edwards was making the work at Sennybridge. It was publicly launched in May 2026, having remained entirely self-funded through her employment between Celtic Manor Resort and Haberdashers Monmouth School.

Edwards has no manager arranging these relationships and no commercial gallery or institution financing her projects behind the scenes. Instead, she has built its growing network by approaching experienced people, asking for advice and acting upon it.

Two days after the opening of In Between Edges, Edwards will fly to Berlin to begin developing Mark Time into her first photobook with international award-winning artist, Adam Broomberg and photographer, writer and educator, Michael Grieve. She is one of a handful of international participants selected for the programme. Her first Arts Council of Wales grant will now support the book’s development across three sessions in Berlin.

Internationally respected photography critic Gerry Badger, best known for co-authoring The Photobook: A History, alongside Martin Parr, agreed to write the accompanying essay before

Mark Time was publicly launched In just over four months, Mark Time has attracted attention from publishers, galleries, university researchers, global-affairs programmes and former defence reporters, all before its first public exhibition has opened.

“If there is any advice I would pass on, it is that doors don’t simply open. You have to keep knocking to discover which ones might”, Edwards said.

“I normally approach people because I genuinely value their advice. I don’t assume they will offer me an opportunity, but sometimes a conversation reveals a route I didn’t even know existed. When that happens, I am prepared to do the work”