Pwnc: O Dywysog i Reslwr Croeswisgo / Subject: From a Prince to a Cross-dressing Wrestler

In the summer of 2024 I had the great fortune to spend all of July as artist-in-residence at The 309 Punk Project in Pensacola, Florida (their first international AIR no less!) I went there with the intention of researching into a disparate collection of Welsh connections I’d found to the city, and then turning them into a punk rock EP with local musicians. That’s (almost) exactly what I did…

The connections included Prince Madoc’s purported landing at the mouth of Mobile Bay, the construction of Fort Morgan at that site (named after a revolutionary soldier of Welsh extraction), the establishing of Strega Nona’s, the city’s first organic-vegetarian restaurant by a Welsh Immigrant (Anne Pugh, originally of Three Cliffs Bay), a fort named ‘The Prince of Wales Redoubt’ used by the British in their unsuccessful 1783 siege of Pensacola, and the long-term residence in Gulf Breeze, Pensacola, of Welsh wrestler, Adrian Street – a series of connections ranging from a Prince to a cross-dressing wrestler.

The 309 Punk Project is a really extraordinary organisation - born of the necessity and desire to save one of the oldest punk houses in the US (there’s no real UK equivalent to a punk house, but it’s most akin to a squat or a very cheap house lived in by musicians, artists, and activists, also being used to stage gigs and events). They have successfully preserved the house, which now contains an archive to Pensacola’s subcultures, a recording studio, an artist-in-residence programme, and a couple of long-term residents still living upstairs.

The EP makes these stories publicly accessible in a unique and original way and is available across all streaming services. As well as the EP, the project has been presented publicly as an illustrated talk and an exhibition, once at UCA Farnham (Feb 2025) and again at Pensacola Museum of Art (Oct 2025).

This project/residency was made possible by an International Opportunities Grant from Wales Arts International.