On Saturday 30th October we are holding a Zine Fair at the Westgate Hotel in Newport.
But, as has been asked many times, what is a Zine?
Zines can be difficult to define. ... A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published unique work of minority interest, usually reproduced via photocopier.
We have invited artists, photographers, community groups and anyone we can think of who produce small zines, full magazines, photobooks or self published books, brochures and pamphlets to join us and share their creations with the rest of Newport! We are set to have a complete range of publications on all matters of subjects in all manner of styles. We will also have some zine making workshops running and would encourage everybody to get stuck in and create their own wacky and personal publication!
Workshop 1: Zine Making with Jude Wall 11am - 12pm
Workshop 2: Zine Making with Snap Shop 1 - 2pm
So join us in the historic setting of the Westgate Hotel to discover exclusive content and creations! And if you would like to produce your own zine to sell at the event then do get in touch!
It is our great pleasure to invite you to our Turning Point: Diffusion Festival 2021 closing party at the Westgate Hotel, Newport, 8-11.30pm on Saturday 30th October.
Set in the historic ballroom, we look forward to celebrating with you and to thanking all those who have been involved in producing this inspiring event.
There'll be a bar, food, music and even a live set from the amazing Jo-jo And The Teeth!
If you have any additional requirements, please email [email protected]
The Betrayal Cycle is a brand new series of interventions on the landscape documented to reveal mankind’s acts of betrayal.
Inspired by the recovery stages for trauma and grief, The Betrayal Cycle is split into a structured narrative to showcase environmental issues as an allusive reference to personal and intimate relationships, whilst questioning acts of human’s corruptive behaviour and their long term impact on the landscape.
Can we re-imagine a low-carbon future where rural communities and nature can both thrive? In his photographic exhibition Land/Sea, Mike Perry questions how Britain currently manages its protected landscapes for climate and biodiversity. Coinciding with COP26, Jamie Owen joins the artist Mike Perry, Dr Sarah Beynon, conservationist and founder of St Davids Bug Farm, Ian Rickman, Deputy President of Farmers Union Wales and Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority Member, Dr Rosie Plummer. Hear these expert voices debate the challenges ahead, the changes that can make a difference, and how we can benefit from restoring nature.
It’s Hard to Report a Stolen Bike, Stolen is a further chapter to The Budgie Died Instantly. This work initially emerged from lived experience and childhood memories but then, through a series of chance encounters, became an exploration of friendship, conflict, humour and humanity. It looks at relationships, acceptance and trust within a closely self-guarded community. A place where utopian desires exist in windows decorated with flowers and pride fronting forbidden spaces behind closed doors that hang full of lost innocence and diminishing dreams.
There will be an opportunity to speak with the artist and find out more about the work on Saturday 9th October, 3 - 5pm! Join Nik Roche for a tour of his exhibition, as well as a book signing and Q & A session.
Come and join us on a fun day to celebrate bees! Ffotogallery have teamed up with Pharmabees and The Ink Collective for a day of activities and workshops that are designed to help us save the bees. Have a go at assembling a beehive, replanting Cathay's planters, making a bee friendly garden, join the bee games, photo hunt and treasure trail.
Meet at 11am at the Church of St Andrew and St Teilo, Woodville Road, CF24 4DX to work on the outdoor community planters, or come over to Ffotogallery from midday for our family friendly activities.
The Moving Image is an exhibition of photographs documenting the discarded mattress of Newport during lockdown will perambulate the length of Commercial Street. Honestly.
Starting at Newport bus station, Kajagoogoo Squadron will board a number 30 bus to Cardiff with a double mattress. Upon arrival in Cardiff, they will retrace the route of the number 30 bus back to Newport, dragging the mattress behind them.
Black Mantis is a live music immersive performance developed between 4Pi Productions and Deri Roberts. Premiering at Diffusion Festival, Black Mantis is a new project from South Wales based producer Deri Roberts, possibly best known for being one-third of Slowly Rolling Camera. His latest album Devil's Flower sees him delve into his darker electronic side fusing together his love for sound sculpture, electronica, and jazz, resulting in an exciting new ever-changing sound world with a visual score produced by the award winning creative studio 4Pi.
In September 2021, Ffotogallery held two free pop up portrait photoshoot sessions in the heart of Pill in Newport. The Phyllis Maud Performance Space became our photographic studio with lights and backdrops set up for members of the public to have their photo taken by one of our professional photographers, (themselves Newport based) Rhys Webber and Fez Miah. The resulting images reflect the cultural diversity of Pill residents, celebrates their individual and shared experiences and illustrates the warmth and friendliness shown to us by all those who became our models. Rhys and Fez both spent time getting to know their subjects and these newly formed relationships between photographers and subjects are clear in the faces of the fabulous people of Pill.
The Phyllis Maud Performance Space was formerly a toilet built solely for men in the late 1800’s and this grade II listed building served both the railwaymen (there were railway lines behind the Phyllis Maud) and the Newport dockers. Derelict to a point of being dangerous this gem was carefully given new life by its present owner Janet Martin and hopefully will stand proudly for a long time to come honouring the late Phyllis Maud Neels and giving pleasure to the people of Newport and beyond.
India is being remade. Once celebrated as a great pluralist success of decolonized nation building, many of its post-colonial benchmarks are being quickly reworked, erased, made redundant. But if you watched India from Khasi-Jaintia Hills of its Northeast, you would have seen the glorious Indian story a bit askew.
For the last thirteen years, I have been trying to make sense of the idea of faith and identity and contestations around the questions of faith and nation making amongst the Khasi Jaintia people. Fourteen because in 2006, revival swept through these hills turning children into prophets. Travelling within the hills and the Welsh Calvinist Methodist Missionary Archives at Aberystwyth in Wales examining the politics of identity making.
Even with a reservation system in place to tackle the inequalities caused by the caste system, the policy makers and bureaucrats have mostly been those of the higher caste. Making it easier to let the inhuman activities continue even till day or go ahead unnoticed and unquestioned. By documenting these stories, I have been able to shed the essential light on this dirty subject of manual scavenging. I have been focusing mainly on the death caused during the work and also the child's life in the household which is caught up in this turmoil.
After the partition, even if the city of Calcutta has been recovering, the sense of discrimination prevails while giving rents to different communities or in some job sectors. Partition still prevails. Since independence many riots have taken place, but the rearmost one is the citizen amendment act conflict that happened in Delhi in 2020. Due to Covid-19 outbreak when patients were asked to self-isolate, a huge clash began at Telinipara, Chandan Nagar, West Bengal, refusing to stay with people from other communities. India is already going under an economic downfall due to the Covid-19 outbreak which is inevitably going to result in famine and with the addition of these clashes, conditions are going to worsen even more.
Devotees of Rock is an exhibition of portraits of rock and roll fans from the U.K. and the U.S.A. The fans were photographed waiting to get into venues, at outdoor shows or during random street encounters. The common thread is their devotion to rock music and more often than not to a particular band or artist.
They can tell you where and when they bought the t-shirt they are wearing and tell you how many times they have seen their favourite band. Some of the most dedicated fans have seen their favourite band play live literally hundreds of times.
The event will be an opportunity to celebrate rock and roll so please wear your best vintage rock shirt for the occasion. We will also honour what would have been John Lennon’s eightieth birthday. One of the greatest rockers of all time.
Refreshments and nibbles provided. Disabled access and toilet. Free admission. All welcome!
PARADE is an exhibition of work from an original immersive multi-media installation, commissioned by Maindee Library, and The Arts Council of Wales.
“The centre of the City is where the old monuments are, but not, for the most part, people’s lives.....” Guido Guidi.
My creative work is inspired by the voices of the people of Wales. My focus has been on the melodic nature, and textures of diverse dialects and languages; particularly our native Welsh and Anglo-Welsh dialects, and how they are mirrored in, and defined by our environment.
I spent time in Maindee, Newport, where I met and listened to people’s stories, alongside cinematographer and photographer Huw Talfryn Walters. Having got to know many of those who live, work and worship there, and capturing hours of film, interviews, and responding to its sounds, I presented this vérité material both as a site-specific immersive installation: a collective experience sited in the community; and as an online portal: a more intimate 'one-to-one' relationship.
The truths and realities that emerge, seen collectively, convey a strong sense of place, and what it means to belong, and the reality of living in urban South-East Wales. It is a snapshot of life in Maindee, as we encountered it in 2019.
Taking a cinéma vérité approach, influenced by documentary film maker Pierre Perrault, the work is concerned with the social and political implications of what is captured on film.
Maryam Wahid (b. 1995) is an award winning artist. Using the art of photography, Wahid’s work is autobiographical and explores her identity as a British Pakistani Muslim woman.
She expresses the origins of the Pakistani community in her hometown Birmingham (UK) by exploring her deeply rooted family history; and the mass integration of migrants within the United Kingdom. Her academic background in Art, Photography and Religious Studies alongside her fascination with cultural cognition and religious ideologies have progressively influenced her work. Her work explores womanhood, the history of the South Asian community in Britain and the notion of home and belonging.
Maryam first met with the women from Coffee and Laughs when they visited her solo exhibition in Ffotogallery, Cardiff. They shared stories and explored individual and collective histories as Maryam got to know them better and, together with Maryam, planned their own portraits: what they would wear if they would include family photographs and how they would like to be represented, seen and remembered. Maryam then arranged photoshoots with the group to set up and take those planned portraits.
The resulting portraits help to tell the women’s stories: their backgrounds, families, achievements and experiences. They are personal and revealing and offer an insight into how these women want to be seen by those around them. In working on this project friendships were forged and it was a privilege for all involved to listen to the stories that were shared.
Antonia Osuji (b. 1998) is a documentary photographer from the UK, living in Wales. Currently, she is in her third year studying a BA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography course at UWTSD. Her interests and work lie in cultural anthropology and inclusivity. Past projects such as Commonalitŷ and Family Portraits (Between Two Fires) focus on cultural differences and inclusion of all races and ethnic backgrounds.
She is currently working an internship with RCC (Race Council Cymru).
Antonia worked with the women from the Coffee and Laughs group at Community House in Newport to explore and develop photography techniques. Starting with a visit to the beautiful Dyffryn Gardens, the women used digital cameras, as well as their own phones, to capture floral scenes. They experimented with apps to create different effects with their images and played with paper and flower collages. The group even had a go at creating pinhole cameras and capturing some almost abstract images of the Peace Garden at Community House.
All of the group’s images were then collated into a collaborative folder where a selection was made for an exhibition. These same photographs were also used to create spectacular bunting with photos on each pennant which decorated the Community House for Maindee festival.
A journey AcrossDownUnder-UnderPasses, subways and through some of Newport’s in between Zones – places still free of the ever present surveillance camera. Spaces often over-looked; ‘Negative Spaces’ that don’t invite lingering or loitering. Spaces that are moved through rather than stayed in. Spaces that are home for some, dumping grounds for others.
The Oddfellows Pigeon Club began back in the sixties. Members would meet in the bar at the Oddfellows Arms in Maindee, Newport and show their pigeons in a large corrugated bow topped building in the beer garden. At one point the club comprised of over nighty members. In 2016 the number of participants had dramatically reduced with an average of only ten to fifteen members attending meetings in the pub, which eventually lead to a decision by a new landlord to use the building for other purposes. The fact that most weeks there were only a handful of members attending the meetings ultimately meant that very little money was spent in the pub. It was no longer economically viable to support the club. Sadly by 2017, the club had to cease its existence.
Keeping racing pigeons became a popular pastime predominately with working-class men, reaching it heyday in the late seventies to early eighties. In parallel to the decline of industry the sport of racing pigeons also decreased dramatically.
In the past, there were over twenty pigeon fanciers clubs in Newport now there are only a handful of clubs that have survived. With very few young people taking an interest the future of racing pigeons could well become of thing of the past.
Post pandemic and a new landlady Jo Harridence who has been a regular for over thirty years has now reinstated the pigeon club. It looks like the pastime will survive for some time yet.
UCAN Productions have teamed up with Ffotogallery, to enable Blind and Partially Sighted young photographers across Wales to exhibit photos at the Diffusion International Festival of Photography in October in Cardiff.
Our young people were invited to submit their photographs through an open call. We hope that their fantastic work will challenge society’s perceptions of what they are able to achieve!
RNIB Cymru and Sight Life have teamed up with Ffotogallery, to enable Blind and Partially Sighted photographers across Wales to exhibit photos at the Diffusion festival in October in a project called See Differently.
The artists who are presenting in this exhibition experience various vision impairment of glaucoma, macular degeneration cataracts, extensive homonymous hemianopia, peripheral vision loss and nystagmus. They are Andy Busbridge-King, Ian Burgess, Emma Juliet Lawton, Des Radcliffe, Elisa Ip, (Henry) Tony Morgan, John Sanders, Paul Jenkinson, Tracy Smedley, Katarzyna Jakimczuk, Jake Sawyer, Rachel Jones and Alan Cains.
RNIB Cymru will also be highlighting photographs that you wish to share on social media throughout October.
Lightpainting is a form of photography where light trails are captured in long exposures; like making shapes with sparklers on Bonfire Night.
I have 50 or so ‘Light Brushes’ and encourage lots of audience participation, allowing people of any ability to create amazing portraits and vibrant abstract light paintings, animations drawings and graffiti. I also use programmable LED wands which can add text or any digital images into the shots.
Each image takes around 20 seconds to 1 minute to create. The developing image appears in real-time on a tablet screen or projector so the results are instantly viewable to everyone.
As 2019 came to an end, experts at the World Health Organisation added the ominous sounding “Disease-X” to its priority list and warned the world to prepare for a possible pandemic as reports began circulating about a “novel” Coronavirus affecting people in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
By spring 2020 the virus, now named Covid-19 had spread to other countries. Hospitals in Italy, Spain, Brazil and America were struggling with rising daily cases. In Britain, hospital wards were closed to non-urgent medical treatments due to growing numbers of Covid 19 patients and the national news channels broadcast an alarming picture of widespread infections and multiple deaths.
On the 23rd March, a national “Lockdown” was enforced when the Prime Minister addressed the nation “…From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction - you must stay at home.” People were allowed to leave their homes for ‘very limited purposes’ such as shopping for necessities, daily exercise or travel to work. All non-essential businesses, shops, pubs and schools were ordered to close. Gatherings from different households and all social events including weddings and attended funerals were stopped. City streets across Britain quickly became ghostly silent, with the exception of the occasional jogger and socially distanced queues outside supermarkets. An imposed lockdown continued off and on for the next fifteen months.
During this period that the Newport photographer, Ron McCormick chose to use his newly defined “right to exercise” by venturing out on long walks with his camera, exploring the now quiet streets and open spaces and photographing the curious events and sights that ensued. The resulting collection ‘Lockdown Landscape’ forms a significant record of this historically unnerving time and the new patterns of social behaviour that transpired.
During the summer of 2021, Ffotogallery held three free Pop Up Community Workshops in various locations around the Cathays area of Cardiff. We had a gazebo and some tables and offered local passing people the chance to make a quick photogram with us to be included as part of this exhibition. The ages of our artists ranged from 2 to 90 something and there were people from lots of different backgrounds.
A photogram is a picture produced with photographic materials, such as light-sensitive paper, but without a camera. Our artists selected different objects and materials to lay onto light-sensitive paper which was then left in the sun for some time to allow the light to alter the paper. Following this, the photograms were washed and fixed creating abstract and ethereal photographs. The resulting images are what you see exhibited.
It was a very rewarding experience to reach out to our local community around Ffotogallery in Fanny Street, Cathays, to meet our neighbours and to engage with them in a creative and exciting activity! We look forward to running similar community projects with our neighbours in Cathays in the future!
Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival brings filmmakers from around the world to Cardiff, Wales, UK. Iris is home to the largest short film prize in the world – the coveted £30,000 Iris Prize. Supported by the Michael Bishop Foundation, the prize allows the winner to make their next LGBT+ short film here in Cardiff.
The Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival takes place in person from Tuesday 5th – Sunday 10th October 2021 in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales. You can also access the festival online from Tuesday 5th through Sunday 31 October 2021.
Newport Town was once described unflatteringly in the 1980’s as ‘a no man’s land, a no plans land’. Projects such as the Friars Walk shopping centre were unimaginable then. Be that as it may, I adopted it as my hometown in 1976, as a newly qualified high school teacher and, just as importantly, as a photographer keen to hit the streets with my SLR to explore its urban fabric and its humanity. What I soon discovered was that Newport as a town had a certain appeal, photographically speaking, that I hadn’t encountered in my American hometown, or in Cardiff, where I’d just spent two years. For anyone drawn to photographing human nature, every city has endless possibilities. But what Newport does so well is to bring large numbers of people together in a relatively small space, either in the city centre or within its different and diverse communities, From where I live, camera in hand, I walk to the town centre in less than 10 minutes, or to Baneswell or Maindee, Pill or Ridgeway. I can be with the people of Bettws or Ringland in 15 minutes on the bus. I never had to go very far afield for the subjects of my book ‘Newportrait’ (Seren 2009). But if the human spectacle on the city streets, even though diverse, was more predictable a decade ago, momentous events in more recent times have brought about very different human encounters in the city. The Ryder Cup (2010), NATO Conference and associated protests (2014) Black Lives Matter protest (2020) have seen to that. Not just Newport’s citizens but others from all over the world have taken part in human gatherings never seen before in ‘the Port’. The contrasting use of analogue black and white versus digital colour imagery serves to dramatize the progression in time from older scenarios to newer ones. Following Newport’s human spectacle over the last 40 years has been a fascinating preoccupation. My archive will continue to expand as we now face the challenges of our pandemic – tainted future and the effects it will have on us all.
Come take part in the opening of Imaging the Nation State, a Ffotogallery and Chennai Photo Biennale collaboration, at BAYART.
Imagining the Nation State is the resultant exhibition of an Open Call grant, awarded to resident photographers and lens-based artists from India and Wales. At a time when individuals are more globally connected than ever before, the idea of ‘nationhood’ remains a powerful unifying force. There is often one nation state, but there are many imaginations of the nation state depending on where one is speaking from.
Could it be that the idea of one’s national identity is defined by a common language, history and culture is at odds with the complex, pluralistic and ever-changing state of nations?
Is the term ‘nation state’ simply an outmoded and divisive construct around which people and land are organised, or does it have a contemporary relevance?
Can we create a new, inclusive vision of nationhood compatible with our global responsibilities?
How do we ensure that a nation’s innovations, cultural forms, wealth and resources are harnessed for the common good, not just for the benefit of those living within its borders?
Photographers/lens based artists were invited to produce ongoing, current and relevant imaginations of the idea of the nation state, responding to these questions. Specific to such efforts was an active conceptualization of both sameness and difference, in relation to what is understood to be the template of the nation-state. The artists involved chose to work with many modalities including but not limited to narrative, materiality, symbolism, phenomenology, fantasy, event, and contingency. At the heart of the work is a willingness for conceptual experimentation and a spirit of critique.
The grant and exhibition are organised by Chennai Photo Biennale Foundation, in collaboration with Ffotogallery, with funding from the British Council and Arts Council Wales. The competition was judged by accomplished artists and historians from India and France, Damarice Amao, Monica Narula, and Sheba Chhachhi.
Be immersed in the opening of Janire Najera’s Atomic Ed at CultVR!
Atomic Ed unveils the journey of Ed Grothus, from working in Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to becoming an outspoken anti-nuclear activist. Archival documents, past and recent photographs, and a selection of letters from over 50 years of correspondence between Ed Grothus and politicians, scientists, the media and his family take us back and forth through the nuclear history of the US, and Ed’s involvement in that history.
Tune in on Facebook live to watch the symposium, or we will have the recording available after the session.
More Than a Number is an exhibition which explores our thinking of an Africa caught between modernity and tradition, and how different cultures can produce meaning through images. Through a series of artist workshops, symposia, and online content, More Than a Number invites the audience to engage with the exceptional and thought-provoking work of 12 photographers from Africa: Amina Kadous, Brian Otieno, Fatoumata Diabaté, Jacques Nkinzingabo, Maheder Haileselassie Tadese, Nana Kofi Acquah, Sarah Waiswa, Salih Basheer, Steven Chikosi, Tom Saater, Wafaa Samir and Yoriyas Yassine Alaoui. It encourages us to look deeply and clearly into the face of the individual in front of you and engage in a conversation. As Elbert Hubbard wrote, “If men could only know each other, they would neither idolise nor hate”.
More Than a Number is centred around three themes: Representing fearlessness, Zones of Contact and Radical Sociality. The physical symposium invites curators and artists from Africa, Wales and the wider UK to further explore the critical discourse needed to situate and appraise the work produced by. photographers from Africa as well as discuss issues around exposure and representation. It invites the audience in the physical form to engage in a conversation about Photography and Africa.
Join us in celebrating the opening of Diffusion 2021: Turning Point at Ffotogallery’s home on Fanny Street.
We will be kicking off the Festival with an opening of two different exhibitions:
- More Than a Number — a physical exhibition of 12 African artists, that explores our thinking of an Africa caught between modernity and tradition, and how different cultures can produce meaning through images.
- Where’s My Space — a virtual project which sees Ffotogallery partner with Kenyan organisation PAWA254 to create an interactive world where both Kenyan and Welsh artists have worked together to reclaim the physical spaces that have been taken away from them.
Where’s My Space is funded by the British Council, and created in partnership with PAWA254.
The hospitality industry was particularly hard hit and pubs had to pour thousands of pints of beer down the drain as they faced closure for several months. Staff were laid off or placed on 'furlough’ with a reduced income, and many businesses closed permanently. When allowed to open once more, pubs and restaurants had restricted hours imposed on them and social distancing regulations that reduced their customer base by 75%. The changed pattern of social behaviour and constantly changing rules imposed by the government affected the economic viability of many small businesses. The future looked increasingly uncertain for many and there was a real fear that the small local pub, places like the Red Lion would close for good.
Last Orderschronicles how one traditional Newport pub responded to the Coronavirus restrictions of lockdown, reduced hours and fewer customers. The Red Lion, Stow Hill welcomes a cosmopolitan mix of middle-aged working men, devotees of real ale and traditional pub games, younger rugby football fans, retired pensioners and local families. The traditional spirit of the pub as a centre of community engagement lives on despite Covid but now with a liberal sprinkling of anti-bac sprays and hand sanitiser, and until very recently, mandatory registration of all visitors, obligatory face masks, and no standing at the bar. For many months it was “table service only”, at socially distanced tables and customers were still confused by the constantly changing regulations.
To date, there have been no reported cases of Covid infection linked to The Red Lion.
My road to rock and roll started when I saw Bob Dylan live when I was fifteen years old. In the decades that have followed, I have been lucky enough to see hundreds of live shows mainly rock and roll but also reggae, punk, hardcore, soul, r and b, blues, folk and a sprinkling of jazz.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the experience of live shows has been the opportunity to meet other fans from all walks of life. I’ve met them waiting outside venues, at the show and back in the day lining up on the street to buy tickets.
There is a camaraderie, you could even call it solidarity, between the fans created by the shared love of the artist and the effect of that artist on their lives. Fans are more than happy to share their experiences. They like to talk about memorable shows that they attended or how many shows they have seen, how they met the love of their life at a show, how they now go to shows with their children or even how they named their kids after the artist or a song by the artist. There are many Rosalitas out there who are the daughters of Bruce Springsteen fans.
About ten years ago, I started to photograph the fans that I met either individually or in small groups. I have met wonderful people from all over the world in the process and heard some amazing stories.
Tourist In Between is an ongoing investigation that uses the commonality of Newport’s tourist attractions as an access point into a more deeply considered dialogue about what Newport means to people internally and externally.
Balancing between theatre and live art the work uses fictional narratives to hang absurdist characters in real, everyday spaces. By making sure the performer and the audience meet in this liminal space between reality and fiction, we can attempt to temporarily poke a hole in the fabric of what we deem ‘might be real’ and dream ‘might be possible’.
The first iteration of the work was a short film (commissioned by Creative Cardiff) that used Newport’s iconic tourist hot spots as a backdrop for semi-interactive street performances and character-based interactions. It is was a playful invitation into the broader thesis of the work, and the beginnings of a surrealist survey into Newport’s culture, future and citizens.
During this initial phase of the work, I found myself arguing with a lady about the real value of my made-up position and that’s when I found the thing I was most interested in and that’s when the work became a human-focused exploration in the community of Newport, as people who live in a city they love or hate.
Through street performance and subtle clowning, I'm attempting to create spontaneous relationships with strangers on the street. Once this has happened we can begin exploring bigger, more direct and more fertile questions.
You will see the work represented as photography and film within a public/gallery space, and also be able to interact with it every Saturday in October at various locations around Newport
This series was shot in New York in 1976 when I spent a year studying photography with Lisette Model, Philippe Halsman and George Tice at the New School. It was a turning point as I had originally arrived in the city to enrol in an MBA programme.
I spent my weekends cruising with my camera, it was the heady days after Stonewall and before AIDS when we were young and busy creating a gay public space such as hadn't really been seen before.
It was the first time I was living in a city that seemed full of photography. There were numerous commercial galleries and the museums had permanent displays of the history of photography.
The New Documents show at MoMA had been a big influence on everyone around me. Lisette talked about “Diane” in class and the real life of the streets was our theatre. Everything needed to be photographed.
Every street corner in New York seemed to be different and unique. Christopher Street became my natural habitat. I was one of the tribe and I wanted to be noticed. I wasn’t spying on the inhabitants. I made myself as visible as possible and walked up to people.
In retrospect, these pictures have become both nostalgic and iconic for a very important moment in my personal history and the struggle for gay liberation that had far reaching consequences across the globe.
My Welsh from Everywhere project was inspired by a line in a poem entitled Maindee by Susan Lewis which featured in an exhibition called Maindee Stories by artist Marion Cheung working a multicultural group of women who meet at Community House.
The line goes "It will be, What we make it. Us, together. Welsh from everywhere". Susan's poem highlights the amazing cultural diversity of the Maindee area of Newport, where the local school boasts 30 first languages spoken by its families at home. Whatever someone's cultural heritage, as residents of this little corner of Wales, they are welcomed as "Welsh from Everywhere".
I was offered the opportunity to set up a studio at several events in Community House - a building at the heart of multicultural Maindee - and offer portraits for all who were interested.
In a few sessions I've met, listened to stories from, and photographed people from over 30 countries across the world from Jamaica to Romania, Mauritius to Bangladesh. These photos show a new Wales, a Wales where multiculturalism enhances the land of my fathers.
Get your portrait taken with professional photographer Fez Miah, and be included in an exhibition for the upcoming Photography Festival - Diffusion 2021.
Hi, I’m Alison, a friend of Jesus, a local ESOL teacher to the beautiful refugees and asylum seekers living in Newport, and a Foster Carer to kids in need. I grew up in the care system as a result of a broken home. My life has been full of incredible moments. Through faith I overcame a nine year heroin and crack cocaine addiction. And now, I love life and am passionate about helping others.
Alison. Faith, love life and passion for helping others.
I am Pam. I began training in martial arts at age 36 - I tried several martial arts, but my preference was Tae Kwon-Do and it was in this style that I attained my black belt at age 40. During my competitive era, I became Welsh, English, Scottish, British and finally World champion aged 44. In my mid 60s I joined a casting agency and have been lucky to have worked as a supporting artist on major film productions and popular TV series; I shall be 72 in November.
Pam. World Champion at the age of 44.
Hi, my name is Aysia. I teach children with complex needs and I enjoy every moment of my day with them. I also give my time to help the vulnerable and elderly in our community by volunteering at Feed Newport food bank. We help anyone who needs our support with food parcels, clothes and recently launched our baby bank too.
Aysia. Passionate about teaching children with special needs and volunteering
We are Newport City Women’s and our ages range from 16 to 45. In the normal day to day lives, jobs vary from working for the NHS to working in supermarkets. We even have members of the women’s team coach football on Saturday to children ages 4-16!
As the only team in Newport, we pride ourselves on being welcome to all abilities and being a very friendly and welcoming group of girls.
We started from having 11 women to now having 48 wonderful women that love being part of the team, we win as one and we lose as one, we laugh as one and cry as one.
We are Newport City!
Newport City Women Football Club. Love for football unite us.
Hi, my name is Rhiannon. I started lifting weights to help overcome an eating disorder and I have never looked back. Weightlifting has so many positive benefits and has given me the strength and confidence to be the best version of myself I can be.
If I'm not at the gym, I like to . . . . hang on, I'm always at the gym!
Rhiannon. Weightlifting brings strength and confidence.
My name is Jo, I have been working in the fitness industry for over 10 years and have worked with some incredible and inspiring clients. As a mum of 2 small boys, I take inspiration from all of the incredible women around me. All women have a beautiful story to tell, advice, guidance and beauty and this is what keeps me driven everyday.
Jo. Healthy lifestyle for everyone.
Hi my name is Corie-Mya, I have been working with G-Expressions for the past 18 months. My job isn't easy - at 16 years old I became the Welsh translations Officer for the company, and am the only Welsh speaker; it’s my responsibility to manage all the Welsh documents and translations, but my team works so hard to support me in any way possible and together we’ve built a working relationship that succeeds. I can’t wait to see where my journey takes me.
Corie-Mya. Growing her skill and young people through involvement in organisation and community.
My name is Danielle, I moved to Newport nearly two years ago to work on my studies at the University of South Wales. I am now months away from finishing my MA. Being someone who has grown up with a physical difference, I take pride and inspiration from making a difference to myself and those I work with. Earlier this year I published a book showcasing and promoting a children’s positive understanding of diversity and inclusion and through my blog; I choose to use my own journey as a resource in which others can use to discover their own.
Danielle. Making a difference one step at a time.
We are a 12 women strong collective of health practitioners serving an inspiring community of hot yoga lovers and individuals wanting to bring positive change to their lives and others. Since opening our doors in September 2017 Hot Yoga Health has grown from a hot yoga studio to a one stop centre for health with a collaboration of women all sharing one goal; to empower the community it serves in becoming the best version of themselves by bringing optimum physical fitness and mental strength through our activities.
Health Practitioners. Using yoga for improving health and empowering the community.
We are Stephanie and Nicky – sisters and founders of HMO Heaven and Rent 2 Rent Success in Newport. We never thought about working together as sisters, but here we are now and our complementary skills are so perfect for our business together that it feels as if it was always meant to happen. We are entrepreneurs, speakers, we share our knowledge with others, we do workshops, guide, we teach and we also published a bestselling book about investing in properties in 2020! We travel everywhere in Britain and help other people to achieve their successes in property business.
Stephanie and Nicky. Entrepreneurs, speakers and inspiring others.
Is violence an integral quality of the human condition? Is violence inevitable in an egalitarian society? Does our mass media environment conjure an echo chamber of violent acts and reprisals? I’m afraid of violence, but I’ve often submitted to it, is a book installation that focuses on society’s vicarious relationship with violence. It provokes the viewer to question their role as spectator, or witness, when confronted with violence, and asks if that decision, conscious or not, contributes to the perpetuation of violence in contemporary society. Using real scenes encountered in the city of Cardiff, this 106-page book questions the cross-pollinating roles of the photographer, the subject, and the viewer, as they transpose between being spectator or witness.
Through street performance and subtle clowning Justin is attempting to create spontaneous relationships with strangers on the street. Once this has happened we can begin exploring bigger, more direct and more fertile questions.
You will see the work represented as photography and film within a public/gallery space, and also be able to interact with it every Saturday in October at various locations around Newport.
The idea for this series is connected to the stories and tales I heard in my childhood and which still follow me everywhere today. These are stories designated for “the black child”, as Senghor put it. For these photographs, I am inspired by the stories that are in my head and then I create objects in the service of those stories. Ideas sometimes come to me at night, while I’m lying in my room. before falling asleep, I sometimes dream with my eyes open. I am looking, I am always groping a little. They are fairly simple portraits, which symbolize one aspect of a story. My use of objects as accessories or costumes for men also relates to the African masks, so well made, today preserved in museums. I leave this context of the traditional African mask, linked to specific customs and beliefs, to move towards something that is more of the order of waste. Often, I even ask the model to make this mask object himself. It has to be artisanal, it is very important. I, as a photographer, set up this device, in order to place the stories that I have heard behind masks, that the young people I photograph have tinkered with recovered things. These are stories I have never lived, these are stories I am told, stories like dreams. When we dream, we believe we are fully living something, and then when we wake up, we realize that it was not reality, and we no longer know what was deep and what was on the surface. So it’s a bit like that Man as an Object : these are stories like dreams, but they work as moral lessons, stories that teach us how to behave in life. Which helps us understand what lies ahead, what can happen. And also what is the link between man and object. It is through stories that one can learn to gain affections towards objects, animals, trees, nature, and more.
Casablanca Not the Movie is a long-term project I started in 2014. It is both a love letter to the city I call home, and an effort to correct the visual record for those whose exposure to Morocco’s famous city is limited to guide book snapshots, film depictions or Orientalist fantasies. The title of the project references the classic 1942 movie Casablanca that was never filmed in the city, but rather in a Hollywood studio.
Casablanca Not the Movie became a series that covers the social and cultural aspects of urban life, the transformations and changes in the city, shaped by numerous currents that may seem in opposition to one another. Here, through one photograph, we can possibly see, enjoy, think, ask questions and care more about a scene that we probably wouldn’t have noticed if it wouldn’t have been captured.
The project is not only documenting the city and its people, but also my personal relationship, experiences and memories with this city. Thus, this series is an insider’s glimpse into the vibrant reality of Morocco’s biggest city from the perspective of a Moroccan, who was born, grew up and still lives there.
‘Area boys’ are synonymous with urban fear in Lagos, West Africa’s mega-city and Nigeria’s commercial capital. They are boys from a given area organized into a survival network. They have no allegiance to any ideology or creed, only to their locality and the young men they cohabit it with. Many are orphans or have been disowned by their families after joining the area boys or committing a crime and bringing a bad name to the family. Others are just trying to get by. Mostly they sleep in the street or in makeshift shelters. The bosses and big men live in tenements called ‘face me, I face you’ because their rows of tiny rectangular rooms have entrances facing one another.
The boys are omnipresent in the city – smoking weed under overpasses, slouching on the outskirts of markets, and hustling everyone they can for small money in the vast markets on Lagos Island. From a distance they are an ominous presence, and up close they can be terrifying.
Just before I started this project, area boys attacked me as I was shooting from a highway bridge in Lagos one night. I wanted to understand my attackers, and the desperation that fuels their violence so I began an ongoing project to take a closer look at the individuals that live and perpetuate the myth of the ‘area boys’. I hope my intimate portraits humanise these men, who are too often simplified as an urban menace. By spending time with the area boys and photographing them the way they see themselves, I am exploring the truth and fiction of Lagosian gangsters.
Find what you fear the most Immerse yourself in it Let it seep into your soul until it’s part of your being The more you embrace your fears, the more they turn into a blue serenity.
Blue is a series of self-portraits reflecting on the experience of fear as if it were a physical space. By stepping into this space, exploring it and engaging with it, I begin to understand it. With time and familiarity it becomes a safe space as I integrate myself with it. Like a metamorphosis, it’s a process that brings you out on the other side.
The images are ways of tracing this process of merging with my personal fears and allowing myself to be immersed in them. The series tries to answer the question of whether fear and peace are opposites, or if it’s possible that they complement each other? The colour blue is used to represent fear, but it also stands for the serenity we may find when we approach the realm of fear instead of avoiding it. The series was exhibited at Nord Art festival in Germany (2015). One of the images was selected as the official poster for Mooov film festival in Belgium.
This project is an exploration of Mbira, a musical instrument traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and its relation to Shona spirituality in contemporary Zimbabwe. In the past Mbira was mostly used in traditional spiritual ceremonies to connect with the ancestors but it also has a complicated colonial history. The missionaries, in a bid to discourage and destroy the culture of Africans, believed that Africans worshipped the devil and the possession of mbira was both evil and primitive. They confiscated all musical instruments especially mbiras, and banned all music-making except church hymns. In the ‘80s, Mbira was popularised again by music artists. Today Mbira is played in some churches, pop concerts for aesthetic musical reasons, entertainment as well as traditionally Biras. It is however still shunned upon by some. This is an ongoing project.
I imagine walls as a provider of a fragmented narrative, a platform of subconscious expression and a context giver of identity that’s embedded in their owners.
Through walls of public and private spaces, I explore into my understanding of family, history, prestige, nostalgia and wishes in an urban context. I portray the owners by photographing their walls. I question, “what do people put on their wall?”
Depending on the demography, the person or the status, walls maintain different functions for different people. Some walls show photographs of past highly contested leaders of the country while others witness the strong religious root of the country or the pride that is in one’s family.
Our walls show the ambivalence created in our minds in a fast moving and transformative age. In one way, this originates from a strong sense of belonging, tradition and pride coming from the history of the country. In another, information, globalization and a sense of longing for what is on the other side of the fence and what exists beyond one’s very own chaotic journey to create one’s own imaginary utopia resides.
Through this series, I hope to raise the question of identity and home rather than answer it. I want to spark a question in the viewer about the identity of those who own the wall and who engage with it every day.
The majority of the media about Rwanda, particularly photographs, serves only to underscore its image as a deeply troubled country with equally troubled people. These photographs depict adults who were born before and after 1994, and show them moving on from their survival stories to forge their own identities. They are people who are celebrating their accomplishments despite the atrocities, and I count myself among their number – I too was born in that year and my father died during the genocide against the Tutsi when I was just 10 days old. So I position myself as a collaborator, an enabler, someone who walks the creative path alongside my subjects. Whilst I provided costume elements, the survivors decided how they wanted to present themselves, how they wanted to show their pride and resilience.
The accompanying letters offer a way to send a message to their families and connect with the dead. As writes: “I’ve grown much like you and that are the most wonderful memories of you in this world, I mean you are still alive through me. “I thought of you today but that is nothing new I thought about you yesterday and days before that, too.” Ndizeye writes in his letter.
In a sense, all members of the generation of 1994 are survivors, we all grew in the aftermath of violence that tore our country apart. Today, through my work and the foundation of the Kigali Center for Photography, I am contributing to how we tell our own stories, through creativity, play, reinvention and resistance.
ELMINA is a long-term project I’m working on. It’s the place where I first found love, where my umbilical cord was buried, where my grandmother sang to my little chubby but sickly body about the greatness in my star.
Elmina is where the first slave castle in sub-Saharan Africa was built, and my mother first nursed me 200 metres away from the dungeons where thousands of enslaved Africans had been locked up, many suffocating or starving to death. I took on this project, knowing very well that nothing I do or say today, can undo the injustices of the past, but I believe we owe it to the millions who are trapped today as sex slaves, domestic slaves or suffer any form of slavery to speak up, and shed light not only on the injustices of the past but of the many in our world today.
One would not think to marry a dance style birthed during the renaissance in Italy with a group of children living in one of the largest informal settlements in Africa. Dance itself is not foreign to the continent, and has played an essential role in African culture, serving more than just a form of entertainment, it has been known to communicate emotions and celebrate rites of passage. With ballet lessons being extremely expensive, the dance is often associated with privilege, and the power that comes with privilege. Dance critic Jennifer Homans said that ballet started off as an activity that was about men, power and important people, and that with modern ballet it became about women, dreams and the imagination. I wanted to capture the in between state of imagination and reality and offer an alternative to the monolithic stereotype of the poor African child from the slum.
In 2013, I started to document my neighbourhood – Kibera, a large slum in Nairobi, Kenya. My lenses often pause on what is for me the soul of this bustling community: its youth.
Kenya’s urban youth born and raised in informal and low-income settlements have to cope with a myriad of challenges, from stigmatization to economic deprivation. Yet, the slums are places of enterprise, innovation, creativity, and determination.
Dressed in stylish suits, colourful ties, hats, and leather shoes, four young men in Kibera have formed the “Vintage Empire” – a personal, social, and political statement; proof of diverse journeys and multiple realities they experience and contribute to shaping.
For them, fashion isn’t just about wearing nice clothes. It is their way of reclaiming, reappropriating, and reinventing their own identity, their unique voice and place in society.
I trespassed through the remnants of my past. Through the layers of time, the ashes and cracks of the walls crumble over me creating wounded walls and wounds inside of me. I feel as though I am walking on bits of my broken heart, collecting and piecing them together as authentically as I can. I’m trapped in my cage of memories, all that I see of my present are mere images of stories my grandparents have passed on to me. Of a city that doesn’t exist anymore. I am lost through my conflicting ideas of my present, trying to adjust yet I’m trapped in a different time that has long been forgotten.
The road is my timeline, my history and my cracked memory. I grew up cocooned and protected by two worlds, two houses and the road connecting them, connecting my past and present. A 120 km road trip I took every week between my father’s home in Mehalla Al Kobra and my mother’s home in Cairo from the age of 5 until young adulthood, stretches as a silent witness and visual documentary as I struggle to find myself. My life was paved along that route. And as a kid exploring and trying to find common grounds in between, I was always wondering where I belonged, where was home. As I moved along the road, my unrecognized longings grew larger than me while chasing my grandparents’ stories, trying to locate myself in a past that was not mine in the memories of their memories.
The road is a constant reminder, a reminder of our individuality, our place and our-selves as we become. It symbolizes the dichotomy between the past and present. As I migrate internally and externally, physically and mentally, outbound and inbound of Cairo, I engage in dialogues informed by my self-doubt and fear yet driven by my instincts towards hope and a vision of a better future. A stream of questions and thoughts erupt inside me: am I living my present or am I just existing? What will my present be? Will it be as glorious as the past’s present? Was the past as glorious as I thought? Is my past my saviour to my present moment and my uncertain future?
It is flaming hot. The house behind us is rising up two levels and blocking the wind. Ja`far and Mubarak, were able to build that house after their illegal immigration across the Mediterranean to Holland and Germany. Many young people from our neighbourhood did the same – as a result more houses are being built with money flowing from countries in the North. I always felt jealous. When many of my friends travelled overseas for work, I also wanted to immigrate across the Mediterranean to achieve my dreams. However, my destiny pushed me to a different spot.
Seven years ago, I came to Egypt to start my university education. I was struggling to adapt. I was overwhelmed with a mixture of feelings: alienation, longing, and loneliness. I thought of giving it all up and returning home. But – home was not home anymore.
“The Home Seekers” explores my complex feelings. It reflects the lack of belonging felt by Sudanese refugees in Cairo and the racial discrimination felt every day in public places, in transportation or walking in the street. It’s difficult being Black in Egypt. People with black skin are stereotyped and labelled by the Egyptian media, which helps drive anti-Blackness in the Egyptian society
Atomic Ed unveils the journey of Ed Grothus, from working in Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to becoming an outspoken antinuclear activist.
Founded by the U.S. Government during World War II, Los Alamos was selected to be one of the sites of the top-secret Manhattan Project because it is so remote. It was here that scientists were able to harness the power of the atom, developing and deploying the atomic weaponry used at Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Ed Grothus had first arrived at this hidden outpost of science to work as a machinist for the laboratory in 1949. During what Ed considered to be an unjust Vietnam War he felt no longer able to support the development of nuclear weapons and left the lab becoming one of the most outspoken anti-nuclear protestors of the 20th Century.
Over the next four decades Ed collected a breadth of surplus material from the lab, turning a former grocery store into a Mecca of technological obsolescence named The Black Hole. It became a unique repository for artefacts of nuclear science, exerting a relentless gravity that accumulated a collection far surpassing the quantity and variety of any museum collection.
The exhibition at Diffusion features past and recent photographs and archival documents including correspondence between Ed Grothus and politicians, scientists, the media and his family taking us back and forth through the nuclear history of the USA.
Join contemporary photographic artist Mike Perry and Bronwen Colquhoun, Senior Curator of Photography at Amgueddfa Cymru -National Museum of Wales, live on Zoom.
Mike Perry’s photographs challenge conventional ways of seeing our coastline and countryside, with a focus on Britain’s National Parks. Land/Sea, currently on display at Oriel y Parc, St Davids, opens our eyes to society’s broken relationship with the natural world.
Dr Bronwen Colquhoun is responsible for the curation and management of the art department’s photography collections, curating the exhibition programme for the Museum’s permanent photography gallery and contributing to the Museum’s temporary exhibition programme.
This event is jointly hosted by Oriel y Parc St Davids, Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum of Wales and Ffotogallery.
Mike Perry is an artist whose work engages with significant and pressing environmental issues, in particular the tension between human activity and interventions in the natural environment, and the fragility of the planet’s ecosystems (be that marine or land).
Land/Sea brings together two recent bodies of work: Wet Deserts which focuses on mundane and typically overlooked locations in Britain, often in places commonly referred to as areas of natural beauty, our national parks, but where there is clear evidence of man’s impact, and Môr Plastig (Welsh for ‘plastic sea’), an ongoing body of work that classifies objects washed up by the sea into groupings - Bottles, Shoes, Grids, capturing the intriguing surface detail by using a high-resolution camera.
Curated by Mike Perry, adapted from Ffotogallery Touring exhibition Land/Sea originated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery and Ben Borthwick.
The women from the Pakistani diaspora who relocated to the UK were very often the hardworking wives, daughters, mothers and grandmothers of individuals who had migrated from cities, towns and small villages in Pakistan. These individuals came to the UK to work in key industrial sectors and set up businesses that contributed towards the healthy economy of their new-found nation. Pakistani women provided a crucial envelopment of familiarity and comfort that gave their husbands, fathers, children and grandchildren a sense of their place of origin – making it a home away from home.
Wearing her mother’s clothes from 40 years ago, Maryam Wahid’s self-portraits seek to recognise the existence and achievements of such Pakistani women and their role as the backbone of a community that transformed inner-city Britain. The family album is at the centre of Maryam’s personal work. She uses photographs from it to deconstruct her own British and Pakistani heritage.
Today, British Pakistani women continue to revolutionise gender roles for other women through the determination, emotional support and encouragement of their female peer network.
Years ago, when I first visited the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, the home of my husband’s Ojibwe ancestors, I was struck by the ineffable quiet and serenity of their lands that produced in me a sense of wonder and completeness. I have returned countless times, photographing on the Reservation and other forests of the Northwoods, trying to capture and express the awe that I experienced. I came to learn this experience has a name: forestbathing, the act of rejuvenating the spirit and body by being in the woods.
Photographing throughout the seasons, I use classic color film and a conventional camera to picture the woods, marshes and meadows, sky, waters, and places marked by the people who dwell there. The images are printed on large scale panels of semi-opaque silk fabric. These delicate panels suspended from the ceiling by transparent nylon line, can be viewed from all sides.
My work invites viewers to feel the deep connection to these ancient forests and contemplate the wonder of the Northwoods. Other sensory stimuli, such as mossy wood, pine, sweetgrass and audio recordings of the natural sounds of the woods heighten the ‘virtual forestbathing’ experience.
Citizens of cities rarely have the opportunity to bathe in thick forest. This installation brings a virtual experience to the city. The official motto for my hometown, Chicago, is "Urbs in Horto" -- City in a Garden. These panels are designed to create "Horto in Urbs" -- a portable garden in the city.
‘Tipping points’ are critical moments in an ecological or social system. Beyond these points, significant and often unstoppable changes can take place. Although gradual changes can be difficult to see, indicator species like Bees (and other species) act as environmental barometers, revealing changes in the health of the natural world. Bees (and other species) are also vital as pollinators, maintaining Earth’s ecosystems, biodiversity and the agriculture that sustains humanity. Yet bee numbers are dramatically falling: worldwide a third of wild bee species are in decline, and in Britain 97% of wildflower meadows have gone.
Ink photographers each explore a different aspect of humanity’s connections to and reliance on Bees (and other species). The group’s work covers Bees (and other species) and their capacity to reconnect us with nature and with each other; to contribute to our health and wellbeing; as an allegorical tool reflecting human society; to indicate the health of meadow habitats; to highlight biological data recorders and to explore our dependence on pollinators for one in three mouthfuls of food. Through this group photographic project, Ink examines issues including the value of nature in urban settings, habitat loss, our dependence on bees for food production and the importance of the work of conservationists.
Presented through photographic series, moving image and sound, Ink questions the potential ‘tipping point’ humanity has reached within the fragile natural world, considers lessons we can learn from our current state of uncertainty and contemplates the opportunities for action now.
Between the years 2012 - 2016, eight students of the Documentary Photography course worked collectively in the city of Newport, whilst the course was still situated in nearby Caerleon.
The proposed exhibition showcases work produced at the time, which was also the seed to future projects and ways of working for each of the group members. During the exhibition, a live laboratory will be initiated in which the artists will return to Newport to create new work which will be edited, processed, and installed within the space alongside or replacing these earlier works.
This initiative culminates in an evolving installation, where the space becomes an open studio, a place for experimentation in which the public is invited to participate alongside the artists in selections, discussions and printing - allowing the images on the walls to be in constant flux. Through this visual mixing of old and new an exchange will take place whilst presenting the images back to where they were produced and inspired, the city of Newport.
The group includes photographers; Bandia Ribeira, Clementine Schneidermann, Daragh Soden, Fergus Thomas, Lua Ribeira, Michael Alberry, Sebastian Bruno, and overseeing the curation of the exhibition is Isaac Blease.
The Lab will be taking place from 13th to 17th of October.
In collaboration with PAWA 254 and Ffotogallery we came up with a concept of how I envision my space and how my paintings fit into the space to effectively tell my story.
Gentil (entrance pieces)
Be kind - it costs nothing, then you are welcome to my “Shrine” that’s my space as I share more essence with you my paintings are part of me, and these pieces just welcome you to my world… to my space.
The African Essence.
This is to acknowledge that everyone we encounter and every living thing we come across with has some effect on us in one way or the other. It’s to celebrate that every living thing has god essence in them and being based on the African soil I chose to name it the African essence. The mask I have done just cover the mysteries of the spiritual aspect of life… and celebrates the beauty and colours of my Africa.
Mother of Creation.
In celebration of life and the continuity of life mother of creation series celebrates motherhood and the beauty of it. The flowers represent this aspect of continuity as flowers carry the ‘seeds’ of the plant. The ladies in the pieces remain calm regardless and this is just to show the strength they possess to carry out the task that has been placed on them by nature.
‘Nature joins the attack’ is a chapter taken from Chancellor Williams' book, ‘Destruction of Black Civilization.’ It highlights natural events that challenged the progression of ancient black civilisation. For example, Chancellor William addresses how the highlands beginning in Central Africa rose southward to higher levels which caused Africa to slope northward and making the Nile flow in the same direction. This enriched North and Eastern parts of Africa, particularly Egypt and Sudan, making Egypt so rich in food production that it attracted foreign invasion, impacting the earliest civilisations of Africa.
The chapter inspired me to create a design space that focused on some of the effects the Nile had on ancient black civilisation. The space is divided into two parts with mediums of drawings and photoshop designs along with written content taken from Chancellor Williams’ book ‘Destruction of Black Civilisation’. I aimed to explore the earliest cultural traditions of the affected countries and particularly see how hair played a role in identifying status and tribe.
“We’re more than sand and the seashore, we’re more than numbers.”
- Bob Marley, Wake Up and Live, 1979
More Than a Number is an exhibition which looks to explore our thinking of an Africa caught between modernity and tradition, and how different cultures can produce meaning through images. It invites the audience to engage with the exceptional and thought-provoking work of 12 photographers from Africa. And encourages us to look deeply and clearly into the face of the individual in front of you and engage in a conversation. As Elbert Hubbard wrote, “If men could only know each other, they would neither idolise nor hate”.
Cultural difference and questions of identity within the ‘rights of recognition’ have, for many of the people who have been regulated to the margins of society, been front-line battles in establishing their identity and human worth (Hall, 1992). What happens when we neglect people’s material culture and not truly value it or represent it everywhere for everyone to engage with? And how can we as the audience, be that as individuals or cultural organisations, draw conclusions from what we already know and understand about Africa and Africans through a visual medium. And finally, how can we as cultural organisations in the West be more responsible in how we represent photography from Africa?
More Than a Number is centred around three themes: Representing Fearlessness, Zones of Contact, and Radical Sociality. Amina Kadous, Brian Otieno, Sarah Waiswa and Wafaa Samir’s projects offer highly subjective visions of African identity while exploring what true freedom and fearlessness in art looks like. Nana Kofi Acquah, Salih Basheer, Tom Saater and Yoriyas Yassine Alaouiteleport the audience into their zones of contact and explore the idea of remaking and reimagining our identities. Fatoumata Diabaté, Maheder Haileselassie Tadese, Steven Chikosi and Jacques Nkinzingabo’s projects remind of us of the importance of preserving and caring for our material culture, cultural heritage and its impact, especially in regard to questions of migration, decolonisation, belonging and experience.
Rights of representation need to happen and need to continue happening through a visual medium such as photography. Historically, to be seen and looked at - across race, gender and class - is a human right. Curated by Cynthia MaiWa Sitei, Creative Producer at Ffotogallery Wales.
Between the Trees is a site specific response to Llyn Llech Owain, a lake upon a hill in West Wales that was mythically formed by the hand of Owain Lawgoch when he once forgot to carefully replace the stone slab which held back a supply of water. A torrent of water poured down the hill, and a lake was formed.
When the pandemic hit, like many, Abby was forced to relocate back to her childhood home. The lake between the trees became a regenerated space for play, imagination and escapism.
The pandemic has seen the prolonged closure of arts and cultural venues across the globe, the spaces where we congregate such as arts centres, youth clubs, community centres, dancehalls and theatres. It has also inhibited our freedom to gather and converse in public spaces, cafes, bars and our own homes; places we shared stories and socialised with family and friends. In the arts, we have needed to create other opportunities for social interaction, performance, exhibition and exchange in virtual spaces.
Where’s My Space? is a collaborative digital project that has brought together two organisations from Kenya and Wales, PAWA254 and Ffotogallery Wales, to create a virtual gathering place, or ‘Base Noma’ (to use a Kenyan expression) where young creatives from the partner countries came together to co-design and develop a unique space for visual storytelling. The project was an opportunity for two dynamic cultural organisations to co-design and develop a unique space for visual storytelling as well as connect young creatives from Kenya and Wales. We have been working with four trailblazing creatives, two from Wales and two from Kenya as well as a 4th year student from the University of West of England as our 3D designer and overseeing the architectural visualisation of Where’s my Space?
Nancy Cherwon also known as Chela is a Kenyan painter, graffiti artist and illustrator, her work tackle’s themes on culture, spiritualism and identity. She makes use of symbolisms, colour, and patterns to set the tone of each painting. Gufy is a Kenyan spoken word poet, cinematographer and photographer. Abby Poulson is a photographic artist born and raised in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Her work explores ideas surrounding her homeland, whilst also responding to Welsh identity, environmental concerns, the rural, memory and place. Gilbert Sabiti is an artist and illustrator; his work mainly involves investigating his Rwandan and British heritage and experiences of growing up Black British; much of his designs lie primarily in publication and illustration. James Reed our 3D designer/architect has been involved in the architectural visualisation of the spaces using a software called SketchUp as well as Vray to generate final renders which Oliver Norcott, Ffotogallery’s freelance Designer used the panoramic images from James’ render and stitched them together into 3D Vista to generate the final space. The project curators were Cynthia MaiWa Sitei, Creative Producer at Ffotogallery Wales and Njeri Mwangi, Co-Founder of PAWA Initiative and Special Project Leads of PAWA254.
The four creatives saw no boundaries within the project and took it as an opportunity to push themselves in reclaiming and reimagining spaces that represent them, their identity, practice and being.
A civic-military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet seized control of Chile on 11 September 1973, abruptly ending Salvador Allende’s “Chilean Road to Socialism.” The Pinochet regime began an extensive terror campaign against leftists and former supporters of Allende. Dreams of a more egalitarian society ended on that day. Economic violence echoed widespread state brutality including kidnapping, arbitrary arrests, torture, executions, and enforced disappearances. Exiles who managed to escape maintained the dream of Allende’s short-lived socialist experiment. My own experience as a next-generation exile nurtured a certain longing for Chile in me. During a trip to Chile in 2006, Augusto Pinochet died weeks after I arrived resonating with Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch – El Otoño del patriarca (1986), a novel which narrates the life and death of an eternal dictator.
Material presented in this exhibition belongs in the interstitial space of exile. My attempts to understand the complexities of this fractured place and time reflects Julio Cortazar’s seminal 1968 novel Rayuela (Hopscotch), which broke boundaries by activating readers and making them hopscotch through the book, jumping from chapter to chapter. The figures I encountered in Chile, such as the relatives of the disappeared, experience a different liminality, unable to bury and mourn their missing whose fate is still unknown after 30 years after the dictatorship ended. El Otoño attempts to honour the missing, those who stayed, those who left, and those still trying to build a better future.
Set on the peripheral of a small ex-mining village in the Gwendraeth Valley, South-West Wales, ‘Xennial’ by Huw Alden Davies is a multimedia collaboration project exploring the concepts of cultural identity, nostalgia and technological-determinism, while recording a generation born at the verge of a digital revolution.
In addition to this larger encompassing series, Separation of Symmetry, a new installation film, is a retro-futuristic gaze on the uncharted generation that bridges the gap between two eras, described as Generation X and Millennials. Celebrating the wonder of childhood, while pulling at the seams of the past, this is an abstract that recognises a post-industrial Wales, beyond the coal face and its promised land.
Aboriginal people knew these fires were coming a long time ago. People chose not to listen. They didn’t look for the signs. There were plenty of signs given to us and we knew that something was going to happen… Fire is one of our elements. We respect the earth, the air, the water and fire. Without fire we wouldn’t survive. (Yuin Nation Elder Vivian Mason, February 2020)
In response to the catastrophic bushfires of the South East Coast of Australia in the summer of 2019-20, Australian Tim Georgeson embarked on the project Truth in Fire. The Black Summer fires engulfed around 24 million hectares of natural habitat, agricultural and urban environs across Australia. Thirty-three people lost their lives, and it is estimated several billion native mammals, birds and reptiles died – excluding infinitely more insects. In consultation with Indigenous Fire Keepers, Georgeson captured the environmental impact of an unprecedented number of fires initiated by thunderstorms across the Yuin Nation. Using moving image, sound and photography the artist communicates the deep sense of loss felt by First Nations people and their path toward the healing of their communities and Country through transformational ceremonies.
Fire is integral to the cycle of many plant species in Australia, but it is the timeliness and severity of the heat that determines optimum conditions for regeneration. Extending the project in 2021, Georgeson travelled to Kakadu in the Northern Territory where cultural fire practices are founded on over 65,000 years of unbroken, inter-generational knowledge. Meeting Victor Cooper (Guruwalu), a proud Minitja man, the artist witnessed the sensitive interplay of Aboriginal people with Country through ‘cool’ burning. These images convey the human application of fire to maintain and revitalise ecological balance, as well as marram, or avian species, which co-opt fire practices to forage for food.
Truth in Fire hopes to inspire cross-cultural knowledge exchange and support international climate movements. In Australia, a collaborative approach to land management, which respects Indigenous knowledge of Country and cultural fire practices, offers a significant model for the continuance of ecological biodiversity.
Tim Georgeson acknowledges and thanks the Yuin, Minitja and Murumburr First Nations people of
Australia for inviting him into their world and sharing their knowledge. The artist acknowledges these traditional custodians of Country and their continuing connection to the land, culture and community. Georgeson offer his respect to Elders past, present and future. Sovereignty never ceded.
Artist’s Statement
The Truth in Fire project was fuelled by my passion to work with First Nations Fire Keepers and an Indigenous Council to help tell a much-needed story that benefits all humans, all life, and our survival on planet earth. Witnessing their fire story in their own words, by their own people, in their own lands opens a secret world and offers a new worldview that could positively impact our struggle with climate crisis and global survival.
Inside these apocalyptic landscapes and transformational ceremonies, we engage with the First Nations’ connection to Country and feel the importance of trusting the wisdom of their ancient practices.
Truth in Fire hopes to inspire cross-cultural understanding, support international climate movements and give a push for new legislation that allows for First Nations people to participate in important ecological decision-making around crucial survival issues.
<Truth DeQay> explores the pandemic’s effect on society’s relationship with social media; While citizens were re-booting their relationship with nature, they also accessed inexhaustible streams of information, as social media went into overdrive.
Much of the information was factually incorrect but inspired strong opinion.
Social media algorithms don’t distinguish between truth and untruth. The algorithms prey on human emotion and push users into rabbit holes whilst Big Tech capitalizes users’ digital profiles. A model described as “surveillance capitalism”.
The digital boundary, where the natural and digital world’s collide, represents “the decay of truth” and asks the question: Where do we get our knowledge and is it reliable?
The project’s epistemological perspective is a reaction to the rise in conspiracy-oriented groups that are often aligned with populism and operate unregulated
The floral wreath, central to <Truth DeQay>, is composed of a dense point cloud, made from 40 million data points, computed with the software’s algorithm. Though similar to the real-world wreath, the 3-d version created by the software’s algorithm, has obvious flaws.
The “back-ground” video, mostly composed of scenes from last winter’s storms, was captured as the pandemic’s second-wave surged and President Trump attempted to subvert the democratic process.
The soundscape mixes natural sounds and field recordings with news clips and phrases spoken by artificial intelligence bots, that were sequenced into a soundtrack composed and produced by Phil & Jai Reeve.
Approaching its 130th birthday, Cardiff's Victorian built indoor market has hosted innumerable traders over its illustrious existence. With 265 stalls available to trade from, some have been trading for decades while others are new arrivals. These are portraits of a few marketeers and their stalls only a few days before Central Market was closed for the first time ever, including 2 World Wars, for the duration of the Covid 19 epidemic. As the world emerges from the worst effects of the pandemic, these small family run businesses have shown great resilience and a determination to keep trading until the customers return and they can build back the market to its former glory.
My work is a dialogue between the past and the present. Exploring my unconscious, I consider what I longed for as a child, what I was afraid of, and the transformation from girl to woman. Looking through the lens, I reconfigure history. But this time I’m holding the camera. As I wander deep into my psyche, the process clarifies, brings me closer to myself, and suggests a sense of control.
Holding On is about the things we hold on to – friends, family, hopes, fears, disappointments, failure, longing, joy. A double-edged sword, holding on can remind us of moments, of others, with fondness but it can also suggest accepting exhausted approaches and longstanding attitudes that restrain personal growth and social progress. The women in Holding On touch, they hold, they rely on one other. The series is about moving forward together.
Acting as self-portraits, these images articulate my own gaze through the unflinching but intimate encounter with the models. The figures act as a physical embodiment with our past, collectively, and individually. These self-aware women and I look at one another as we begin to drop our facades and for a few moments, understand each other perfectly. A window of alignment where all things superfluous give way to vulnerability and strength.
Speaking to the importance of familial relationships, to generational history and experience, my work is a story about love, power, and trust.
It’s Hard to Report a Stolen Bike, Stolen is a further chapter to The Budgie Died Instantly. This work initially emerged from lived experience and childhood memories but then, through a series of chance encounters, became an exploration of friendship, conflict, humour and humanity. It looks at relationships, acceptance and trust within a closely self-guarded community. A place where utopian desires exist in windows decorated with flowers and pride fronting forbidden spaces behind closed doors that hang full of lost innocence and diminishing dreams.
Kept within a cycle of deprivation — not necessarily of wealth, but of information and alternative realities — this is an intimate, visceral portrait of people whose lives are caught in oscillation between incarceration and freedom.
The intimacy of these images offers insight to the conflict of possibility and reality and the elusive moments of hope that lie in between. Nostalgic recollections and anecdotes of chaotic incidents interweave with alarming hilarity. A mirror on life’s complexities and the inherent need to survive at all costs in pursuit of belonging and love, this work reveals a community marred by enforced social marginalisation and outrage, where resilience and behavioural patterns remain unbroken against an assault of ill-considered mental-health care, trauma and lack of long-term systematic change.
Mutual trust and understanding are critical to sharing these moments in their lives. Standing on the sidelines is not an option.
Women of Newport is about showing and celebrating wonderful women in our city – their success, passions, commitment and inspiring work. Women of art, creative minds , writers, women of business, those who make a difference , musicians and many more.
The exhibition is also about making physical connections between women’s networks in Newport, so we can work together and help each other, make new collaborations or partnerships. Women helping women – because sometimes by doing something together we can achieve more.
Industrial worker’s tintype portraits made on the industrial/domestic material of tin.
Landscapes of industry captured in tin can pinhole cameras.
A revolution in early photography fuses material and meaning, creating precarious stacks of cans/faces in a metallic, manufactured landscape.
The last Tin Works in South Wales has worked flat out through the pandemic to meet the massively increased demand for canned goods. This project is a journey into this contemporary socio-economic landscape and industrial/domestic history of tinplate. The work was prompted by Powell’s own family lineage of Welsh tin workers. As a boy in the 1950’s the artist’s father watched the photographic processes used to imprint the tin for branded packaging and witnessed the demolition of the area’s former tinworks whilst her Great uncle invented a gauge for measuring the thickness of tinplate. The projects continues a fascination with an alchemy of metallic history where material, context and concept coalesce, reinvigorating the historic technique of tintype photography to record a contemporary landscape in transition.
Site/material specific portraits are exposed onto tin cans using the wetplate process where a positive is created on the lacquered sheet of metal coated in a light sensitive silver collodion solution. The images/objects produced stand in reference and juxtaposition to Warhol’s famous cans. If his spoke to commodity, mass production and manufacturing these tin image/artefacts speak to a material, social history and labour through direct collaboration with the industry, working community and the material they deal in.
My first body of work, “You Brought Your Own Light” exhibited in the summer of 2018 with the National Transgender Charity and is now an Arts Council England funded book exploring trans and non binary narratives.
Stories of transformation fascinate me, especially when they are women's stories. I love to photograph teenagers, trans people, women surviving illness or escaping violent marriages. It is not just the physical changes that draw me but how sometimes our internal, emotional lives change too. To take a persons image is political and is, in part, self portrait. I am representing women and men, exploring their narratives and interweaving them with my own. When I construct a story of femininity I inhabit it, with masculinity I feel more like an observer. The people here all desire to grow. To become their authentic selves they begin a journey of transformation, they are at different stages and no narrative is linear or simple.
I photographed them in my home using natural light and only directed them by saying, "Show me how you feel - use your body and your eyes."
The book is produced by Alan Ward, published by Axis and written by Olivia Fisher. My second project on domestic violence is also Arts Council funded.
The Festival of Britain in 1951 was heralded as ‘a Tonic to the Nation’ and held out the promise of a brighter and more equitable society for all. The Festival was also a showcase of Britain’s future as a modern nation wedded to an ideology of scientific and technological progress and became emblematic of a post-war social consensus that endured until the 1970’s. The physical legacy of the Festival was reflected in the planning and widespread construction of public buildings, public housing estates, new towns and the social infrastructure associated with a modern social democratic society.
However, judged by today’s standards, the Anglo-centric idea of nationhood the ‘Festival’ promoted left little room for expressions of concurrent notions of identity beyond the re-statement of national and regional cliches. There was also little mention of Britain’s highly destructive colonial entanglements as well as a failure to appreciate the impact of science and technology’s devastating applications, particularly with regard to the development of nuclear weapons and the polluting agents and materials that have led to a climate and environmental emergency.
There is naturally more than one history about the Festival to be told and the project ‘Lions and Unicorns’ presents a mixed-media approach that encompasses an interplay between visual and textual elements that seek to highlight the contradictions inherent in Britain’s post-war trajectory and, as we mark the 70th anniversary of the Festival in 2021, an opportunity to re-evaluate this period in Wales’s recent history.
The Gaer Estate.
In 1951 a council estate on the edge of Newport in Monmouthshire and adjacent to an Iron Age Fort won a planning and architectural award at the Festival of Britain. The streets of the award winning Gaer Estate were named after famous English speaking writers, including Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley and Kipling. Although the naming of the streets in this way was not a requisite for the award it unwittingly reflected one the Festival’s central tenets; to celebrate a vision of the future that encompassed a deep attachment to the land of Britain and the history and culture of that land. This romantic and almost mythical notion of nationhood was forged from an amalgam of cultural elements ranging from the new picturesque to Bauhaus modernism, methodism and utopian socialism tempered by the need to confront the material realities presented by the aftermath of war. However, a social consensus that endured until the 1970’s that had put the right to adequate housing at the heart of social programming was abandoned in favour of a policy of ‘Right to Buy’ in the 1980’s.
The Gaer Estate was built on farmland overlooking the Bristol Channel and was acquired by Newport Town Council as a consequence of the 1946 Housing Act. Designed by the Newport borough architect Johnson Blackett following neighbourhood principles of urban planning, the estate and primary school were one of only 19 awards presented by the Festival across Britain. A commemorative plaque still adorns the frontage of 1 Vanbrugh Gardens to this day.
HMS Campania.
The Festival of Britain of 1951 was an exhibition with a truly national reach. Though the main festival site was on the South Bank of the Thames in London, a myriad of official and unofficial events were celebrated throughout the late spring and summer months in every corner of the country. HMS Campania was a WW2 aircraft carrier that was converted to house a pared down version of the main attractions in London and visited a number of port towns and cities including Cardiff. Painted pure white for the event, the words “Festival of Britain” were emblazoned on its side. Inside the ship there were ample examples of atomic iconography, design and information used extensively throughout the Festival and which helped legitimise a domestic vision of Britain’s future powered by the fruits of atomic research.
Soon after the Festival ended Campania was recommissioned by the Royal Navy and became the command ship for the first British atomic bomb test that took place in the Monte Bello Islands, just off the north west coast of Australia, on the 3rd October 1952.
Given the code name Operation Hurricane, the purpose of the test was to assess the impact an atom bomb might have on the Port of London and to establish that Britain could build a bomb independently.
The British atomic bomb would be deployed for military operational use in 1953.
