You’ve created a breadth of work ranging from light poems celebrating the natural world to polemical billboards. Do you think that your work gravitates around a particular message?
Not one particular message, but particular kinds of messages. I think ecology, free healthcare, free education and compassion for refugees are the crucial issues of our time.
How does it feel to be a contributor to this year’s Cardiff Contemporary Festival?
Quite exciting. I think I’ve only been to Wales before on a Dylan Thomas pilgrimage to Laugharne. Oh no wait I also once spent a very rainy New Year’s Eve in a cottage in Wales with Brett Anderson I think, but that was a long time ago and my memories of that are quite vague. I’m looking forward to discovering Cardiff and a more contemporary Wales in the charming lanes and cafes of today’s Cardiff.
Can you tell us a little bit about what your next project might entail?
I’ve just done a wall painting in Norway in support of #refugeeswelcome that says ALL EUROPE MUST BE EVERYWHERE A REFUGE FOR THE BROKEN HEARTED. I think I should make more work encouraging us to be compassionate to refugees. As a country, Britain isn’t taking anything near our fair share of refugees, and I think that’s a national disgrace at the moment. We are leaving broken-hearted families to die in the sea or be held in freezing cold camps. You don’t get on a dodgy boat from Syria with your whole family and just a few possessions unless your life is in danger. We need to really reassess how we think of refugees. They are normal families with broken-hearts.
Robert Montgomery: Cardiff Poem. Info: www.cardiffcontemporary.co.uk
words LUKE OWAIN BOULT