Sea for Yourself
Commission Two
Two acclaimed artists have been selected for the second major commission in the city’s ambitious Sea for Yourself cultural programme.
Plymouth Culture is delighted to be working with Leila Gamaz and Hanna Kubbutat-Byrne on the second Sea for Yourself Commission, which will explore themes of cultural identity, community memory and marine citizenship.
Working closely with The Box and its archives, the artists will create opportunities for people across the city to contribute to a set of interconnected physical and digital outputs that will bring together a patchwork of stories, memories and creative responses connected to Plymouth’s coastal identity.
About the Artists
Leila Gamaz
Leila Gamaz is an Algerian-British artist who shares untold stories through writing, film, and oral storytelling. Her practice is rooted in a lifelong counter-archiving approach, exploring who holds the right to tell stories, who has access, and which narratives are left untold or deliberately erased. Through her work, she builds upon our collective past held within ourselves and the lands and seas we inhabit, resurrecting the legacies and wisdom they carry, and dreaming into alternative futures of collective liberation.
Coming from a lineage of herbalists, healers, and freedom fighters who have preserved these ways despite purposeful erasure, she celebrates this voice of resistance that has kept generations of people and histories alive. Drawing on contested and colonial archives within her family, she interrogates the narratives these contain and challenges conventional notions of what an archive can be.
Her background in care, psychology, and working with co-operatives informs her approach that is inherently collaborative and person-centred. She is also driven by a desire to find meeting points between the cultures, languages, and worlds she inhabits, building bridges that others can meet upon in times of deep division.
Hanna Kubbutat-Byrne
Hanna Kubbutat-Byrne is a writer, storyteller and socially engaged artist whose work harnesses the transformative power of story to renew belonging and connection to our communities and the natural world.
With an international background in facilitation and performance, her practice has been shaped by years working across very different worlds. From theatres and community spaces to prisons, care settings, and corporate boardrooms, she has earned a sharp understanding of how power shapes narrative. She works slowly, relationally, and with care, inviting people into playful and creative processes that are transformative.
Proudly rooted in working-class heritage, she honours the ingenuity, imagination and oral storytelling traditions she lives amongst through her work. Experiences with institutional archives that attempted to speak for her fuel a practice in which storytelling becomes a way to reclaim agency where narratives are too often authored by others.
Across all her work, Hanna treats storytelling as a communal resource: a way to mend what has been severed, to illuminate what has been hidden, and to imagine more just, regenerative and connected futures.
About the Commission
Together, Hanna and Leila, who are both based in the South West, bring extensive experience of working in care settings, heritage environments, faith communities and social change initiatives. Their practices centre on who gets to tell stories, how narratives shape belonging, and the role creativity plays in restoring relationships between people and place.
Their Sea for Yourself commission will explore themes of cultural identity, community memory and marine citizenship. Working closely with The Box and its archives, the artists will create opportunities for people across the city to contribute to a set of interconnected physical and digital outputs that will bring together a patchwork of stories, memories and creative responses connected to Plymouth’s coastal identity.
Their collaborative approach often begins with opening up conversations and creating spaces where people feel confident to share their experiences, challenge inherited narratives and build new forms of belonging.
Sea for Yourself is being led by Plymouth Culture in partnership with Plymouth City Council and Plymouth Sound National Marine Park. The programme development and delivery is supported by key partners including The Box, Real Ideas, Arts University Plymouth, University of Plymouth and Theatre Royal Plymouth. Sea for Yourself is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England Place Partnership Fund.
