In conjunction with the exhibition Alteration, this symposium Unmasking the Past provides an extended analysis of the archival activation each artist employed in the production of their work by examining the themes of colonialism, identity, citizenship, and non-citizenship in contemporary times. We aim to connect levels of distortion through the exploration of how images and objects have been used throughout history, thus bringing together the various levels of distortion. However, this does not change the fact that a distorted picture of history cannot be reframed in a new light. While the content of these images and objects holds meaning, their physical form and how they are presented are also important as historical records that hold significance in society. While the exhibition aims to challenge the re-imagination of the gallery as part of Alteration, an integral part of Unmasking the Past is to foster live collaboration between practice-based artists and historians. Artists will discuss their work and then scholars respond to these themes or areas of focus as they interest them. As a result of these discussions, we connect histories in a cross-scholarly exchange that allows ideas and opinions to freely flow.
Schedule:
11.30am Doors open
12pm (prompt) Welcome from Siân Addicott and Nelly Ating
12.15 pmBeyond the Frame: Passport Photographs and State Control Speakers: Nelly Ating and Professor Patricia Hayes
1pm Comfort break
1.15pmMatter Out of Place: Chagos Islands Speakers: Audrey Albert and Thierry Mandarin
2pm Comfort break
2.15pmWelsh Communities in Patagonia Speakers: Ffion Denman and Dr Geraldine Lublin
3pm Talks finish; gallery doors close at 5pm.
This event is free and open to all. Booking is preferred but not essential.
Thumbnail image courtesy of UWC-Robben Island Mayibuye Archives
Join us for Tea and Cake Tuesday taking place on 6th of February, 11am - 1pm. As we’re between exhibitions at this time, the event will be taking place in the library where you will get a chance to browse some of the new publications that we have acquired over the last few months.
We will be delighted to see you and to chat over a cuppa and some cake.
Like clothes are altered by a tailor to fit the wearer, so too are the records of history. Fragments of histories crafted, maintained for specific purposes, often silenced. The suppression of histories has shaped ideologies, social systems. The alteration of history has altered the fabric of society.
Interrogating archival photographs and objects that centre a Western history of decolonialisation through alteration, the artists Ffion Denman, Nelly Ating, Audrey Albert, and Ariella Aïsha Azoulay consider the role that galleries and institutions play in the public discourse and interpretation of history. Specifically, the contortion of history regarding the Welsh Patagonia colonisation, the South African Afrikaans occupation, the Chagossian Islands under British colonisation, and the occupation of Palestine by Israeli forces are reinterpreted by the artists in the gallery space. As Conrad (2016) points out, global history aims to come to terms with the connections of the past. Therefore, from image circulation to the use of these material objects, the artists aim to draw from similar historical alteration as a marker that connects levels of distortion.
What has this got to do with the gallery as an institution?
As political concepts are not neutral, the gallery bears witness to many levels and forms of alteration. Can the gallery’s past be reimagined, interwoven with other pasts?
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Last year we were delighted to start working with Audrey Albert and the Imperial War Museums on a project as part of the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund, a national partnership programme of over 20 artist commissions inspired by the heritage of conflict. Led by Imperial War Museums, the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund was created following the success of 14-18 NOW, the official UK arts programme for the First World War centenary. Albert’s commission focuses on the Chagos Islands. We are looking forward to showing some of Audrey’s work in progress this Spring as part of the Interventions: Gallery Reset show Alteration, with the commission culminating in a solo exhibition at Ffotogallery in 2025.
Interventions: Gallery Reset is a series of gallery ‘takeovers' made possible with Art Fund’s ‘Reimagine’ grant, providing new opportunities for artists to experiment, challenge and ask provocative questions, with a focus on themes such as identity, migration, gender, social inequality and the environment.
January can be a long, dark month after the highs of the holidays so we’d like to invite you all to join in on a project designed to help improve our wellbeing and lift our spirits! Our aim is to create a space where creativity and wellbeing intersect.
At the start of 2023 we ran a project with daily prompts but this year we’ve decided to do it a bit differently.
Instead of a prompt every day, we will issue a prompt at the start of each of the 5 weeks in January (4 full weeks and three days in week 5). The themes will follow the 5 Themes of Wellbeing and we invite you to create a photo essay that explores the theme for each new week with as many or as few photographs as you would like to capture.
On Monday of each week we will issue the Wellbeing Theme for that coming week across our online platforms. Having a week to think about each theme will give you time to consider how you could illustrate that theme through photography. Your photographs could be personal or look outwards, you might like to include text through poetry or prose, you could include some mixed media if you’d like to and you can interpret the themes in whichever way seems right for you. The first weekly prompt will be posted on Monday 1st January.
We have created a Facebook Group where you can share your photographs throughout the month with a community of other photographers who are all taking part too.
If you’re not on Facebook, you can upload your photographs to our shared folder.
We are really looking forward to seeing how everyone interprets each theme and the wonderful work created! We hope that having an uplifting focus through January can help us all to start the New Year with a positive outlook for 2024!
Please ensure that you own all copyright to any work submitted. By submitting your work to us you are giving permission for the work to be shared across our online platforms. Please include your name in the title of each file submitted. The 5 ways to wellbeing were developed by the New Economics Foundation, and they're based on evidence and research.
WEEK ONE: CONNECT (1 - 7 January)
Human connection is so important to our wellbeing. Whether in person, online, through a phone call, with one person or many, connecting with others can help us feel close to people, and valued for who we are.
How do you connect to people? How do you see others connecting? How can you show how important that connection is through photographs?
Use this week to explore the notion of connection and how it helps improve our wellbeing.
WEEK TWO: GET ACTIVE (8 - 14 January)
We’ve all heard how important being active is to our wellbeing and how it can help to nurture a positive mental attitude. This doesn’t mean that we all need to sign up to going to the gym 5 days a week, making small changes can be really beneficial too. Just going for a walk in the fresh air, choosing to take the stairs up to the first floor of the car park instead of waiting for that lift, having a bit of a dance, even just doing a few small stretches can really help.
Use your camera this week to capture photographs around this theme. It could be how you keep active or it might be looking at others around you. Maybe you could document a walk through the park or the runners or dog walkers that use that space too. Perhaps you go to a yoga class where the human form creates some amazing shapes. Whatever you choose to look at try to capture the notion of keeping active throughout this week.
WEEK THREE: TAKE NOTICE (14 - 21 January)
So often we walk through life with our heads down and in our own thoughts.
Reminding yourself to take notice can really help you to be aware of how you're feeling. Some studies have shown that savouring ‘the moment’ can also help you to feel more positive about life.
Take time to pause, breathe and take in what’s happening around you.
This week use your camera to capture images that illustrate the notion of taking notice. Stop for a minute and look around. What do you notice?
WEEK FOUR: LEARN (21 - 28 January)
No matter how old we get we are always learning new things, whether we realise it or not! Learning something new can be a real boost to improving your self esteem and well being.
What have you learnt already today? Is there something that you’ve always wanted to learn about? It doesn’t have to be a big thing or an arduous task: you might choose to learn a magic trick, how to fix your washing machine, maybe listen to an historical podcast, learn a new word, find out something about the place you live in, learning anything new, no matter how small, could help you feel a sense of accomplishment on any scale.
How can you show that process of learning through photographs and how much that process can be beneficial to how you are feeling? Spend this week trying to capture that idea through your photographs.
WEEK FIVE: GIVE (29 - 31 January)
It is better to give than to receive, that’s what they say. And there is certainly much truth in that statement.
Giving makes you happy. Seeing the smiles, gratitude and expressions of hope on the faces of those you are kind to makes the act of giving worthwhile. Giving cultivates self-worth and simply makes you feel good!
In the last few days of our January Wellbeing Photography project can you capture that feeling of happiness created when one person gives to another? That sense of contentment and pleasure that comes from the act of giving?
We warmly invite you to join us for a series of online talks with the ten artists selected for Ffocws 2023.
Ffocws is part of Ffotogallery’s mission to support emerging and early career artists in Wales who challenge the process, medium and application of photography. For this year’s selection we surveyed recent graduates across the country as well as aspiring artists through an open call in collaboration with Cardiff MADE (Higgins Initiative in Ffocws).
For this final artist talk we will be joined by Jean Chan, Katie Nia, Mareah Ali and Shaun Lowde. Find out more about the artists below, and book your ticket via Eventbrite here.
We warmly invite you to join us for a series of online talks with the ten artists selected for Ffocws 2023.
Ffocws is part of Ffotogallery’s mission to support emerging and early career artists in Wales who challenge the process, medium and application of photography. For this year’s selection we surveyed recent graduates across the country as well as aspiring artists through an open call in collaboration with Cardiff MADE (Higgins Initiative in Ffocws).
For this second artist talk we will be joined by Robin Chaddah-Duke, Shannon Maggie and Viv Collis. Find out more about the artists below, and book your ticket via Eventbrite here.
The event is taking place online via Zoom. If you have any access requirements, please email [email protected] prior to the event, and we will do our best to provide support.
We warmly invite you to join us for a series of online talks with the ten artists selected for Ffocws 2023.
Ffocws is part of Ffotogallery’s mission to support emerging and early career artists in Wales who challenge the process, medium and application of photography. For this year’s selection we surveyed recent graduates across the country as well as aspiring artists through an open call in collaboration with Cardiff MADE (Higgins Initiative in Ffocws).
For this first artist talk we will be joined by Alice Forde, Emma Spreadborough and Megan Morgan. Find out more about the artists below, and book your ticket via Eventbrite here.
The event is taking place online via Zoom. If you have any access requirements, please email [email protected] prior to the event, and we will do our best to provide support.
The exhibition continues until 12 January 2024, open Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 5 pm.
Ffocws is part of Ffotogallery’s mission to support emerging and early career artists in Wales who challenge the process, medium and application of photography. For this year’s selection we surveyed recent graduates across the country as well as aspiring artists through an open call in collaboration with Cardiff MADE (Higgins Initiative in Ffocws).
The exhibition brings together the work of fourteen talented artists touching on diverse themes ranging from identity, family, migration and disability to AI and community art practice. The wide-ranging individual perspectives on show remind us of the creative opportunities photography offers for human connection in our unpredictable and changing world.
This exhibition would not have been possible without the generosity of our supporters in particular Swansea College of Art (UWTSD), Cardiff Metropolitan University, University of South Wales, Carmarthen School of Art at Coleg Sir Gâr, Cardiff and Vale College, the Higgins family and Arts Council Wales.
A practical online workshop on photovoice: participatory photography with marginalized groups
Dr Deborah Chinn, lead researcher for the Feeling at Home study, will introduce ‘photovoice’, a participatory research and community development method in which people tell their stories, share their experiences, and work towards improving their lives through photography. Images from the Feeling at Home study are currently on exhibition at Ffotogallery from the 11th to the 21st of October 2023.
This online session will be of interest to artists and photographers who want to use participatory approaches to include community members in their practice, and community groups and individuals who are curious about how they can use participatory photography to bring about social change.
In this interactive session, Deborah will give attendees the chance to practice photovoice themselves in a photovoice taster activity. She will then explain how we used participatory photography in our research to explore what helps people with learning disabilities living in group homes feel ‘at home’. She will discuss the benefits of using this method to share meaning, the challenges we faced in interpretation, and the impact the photovoice process had – on participants, exhibition visitors, and the research team.
To coincide with the annual Iris Prizewhich takes place every October, we’ll be hosting a pop up exhibition featuring Pink Portraits Revisited. Dylan Lewis Thomas photographed the next generation of LGBTQ+ professionals working behind the camera in this series after being selected via an open call hosted collaboratively by Ffotogallery and Iris at the end of last year.
You can also join us on Thursday 26 October for a screening of Iris Prize’s Best of 2023 (details to follow).
The ten sitters featured in this exhibition are:
Bradley Siwela (He/Him) Producer | Assistant Camera |Great listener
Efa Blosse Mason (She/They) Animator | Director | Loves folktales and mythology
El Bergonzini (They/Them) Editor | Floor Manager | Coffee lover
Seth Edmonds (He/Him) Festival Administrator | Producer | Cat person
The original Pink Portraits: In 2010 the Iris Prize, together with the UK Film Council, commissioned celebrated Scottish portrait photographer, Donald MacLellan to photograph 20 gay and lesbian professionals working in front and behind the lens. They included Simon Callow, Terence Davies, Stephen Fry, Phyllida Lloyd, Mark Gatiss, Briony Hanson, Sean Mathias, Sir Ian McKellen, Berwyn Rowlands, Sophie Ward and Sir Antony Sher.
Ffotogallery's bi-annual Photo Book Fair is taking place on Saturday 21 October!
We have a range of stallholders lined up, including Nawr Magazine, Offline Journal, Ipigeon, Ffoto Newport, 2tenbooks, USW and more. See below the day’s schedule:
12.00 - 16.00 - Fair open
13.15 - 13.45 - Talk from Nawr Magazine
14.00 - 15.00 - Photobook speed presentations
Do you want the chance to present your photobook - in whatever stage of creation it's in - to an audience? Sign up for a 5 minute slot at our drop-in 'Photobook Speed Presentation'.
We want these photobook speed presentations to be a chance for artists to connect over their work, discover new creatives as audience members, and refine their own ideas.
This exhibition, a collaboration between Elysium and Ffotogallery, showcases recent work by Fatoumata Diabaté, a Malian photographer from Bamako. Particularly interested in the place of women in society, Fatoumata is president of the Association des Femmes Photographes du Mali. Her work has been exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and she has been the recipient of several awards.
Alongside her captivating, dreamlike portraits inspired by folklore and fairy tales from her childhood, L’homme en object et L’homme en animal, this exhibition premieres Nimissa (meaning regret in the Bambara language) in the UK. Through the common history of several women, who, like the artist, were victims of female genital mutilation (FGM), the images that make up Nimissa contribute to a process of reconstruction of a lost, stolen, female identity of an intimate self that has disappeared.
Feeling at Home: photos by people with learning disabilities sharing their experiences of living in group homes.
We are delighted to be hosting this pop-up exhibition at Ffotogallery from 11 - 21 October 2023.
Feeling at Home shows work from 19 photographers with learning disabilities from across Brighton and London. They have been meeting together in small groups to reflect on what helps them feel at home, and what gets in the way of this. The exhibition provides an opportunity for the public to see the world through the eyes of people with learning disabilities, and to reflect on their own responses to this work.
The exhibition is part of the Feeling at Home research study, funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research’s School for Social Care Research. We have used photovoice, a research method where people tell their stories, share their experiences and work towards improving their lives through photography.
We warmly invite you to join us for an evening celebrating our current exhibition You and I by Jack Moyse, on Saturday 9th of September.
We will also be launching the first in a series of publications focussing on the Interventions: Gallery Reset initiative, with images from the exhibition and essays by Jack Moyse and Karin Bareman. Printed in a limited edition of 100, this is the perfect opportunity to get your hands on a copy.
You can also expect DJ sets from Jack Moyse and friends, plus retro nibbles, wine and beer (donations gratefully received).
Join us for a very special edition of Tea and Cake Tuesday on the 5th of September between 11am - 1pm. As usual, staff will be on hand to greet you and tell you more about the current exhibition, but we are also delighted to be holding a special screening of the archival film, 'The Bells of Santiago'.
In 1973 an operatic performance of the story of the Bells of Santiago and the catastrophic fire which destroyed the Jesuit Church in Santiago, the Chilean church where they were housed, on 8th December 1863 was created as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon. The music and lyrics for the operetta were created by Terence Minty, Ffotogallery's most loyal supporter (pictured below!)
Thumbnail image: Ruins of the Church of the Compania at Santiago, Chile, after the conflagration. Source
Join us on Thursday 7 September for a discussion about the barriers facing young disabled artists. BSL interpretation is provided for this event.
We are thrilled to welcome a diverse panel of individuals who are all working within the arts scene in Wales. They will be sharing their own personal experiences, how they overcame some of the barriers they faced, and what still needs to change to make the sector a more accessible and inclusive space. The audience will also be invited to ask questions or share their own experiences.
Moderating the discussion will be photographer and artist Suzie Larke, joined by our panellists Jack Moyse, Joshua Jones and Danielle Webb.
Suzie Larke is a visual artist and photographer based in Cardiff, UK. Her fine art photography explores themes of identity, emotion, and mental health.
Jack Moyse is a photographer and artist based in Swansea, South Wales. His practice focuses on societal issues such as the demonisation of migrants, ableism, and mental health.
Joshua Jones (he/him) is a queer & autistic writer and artist from Llanelli, South Wales. He is the co-founder and director of Dyddiau Du, a NeuroQueer social hub and centre for art & literature in the heart of Cardiff.
Danielle Webb is a children’s author, and founder / creator of Life Being Little and Short Perspectives. Webb is also a dancer, actor, representative for USW, organiser of the Reggae’n’Riddim festival, and is the Youth Communications Officer at Urban Circle.
On Thursday 24 August we are hosting a life drawing session where artist Jack Moyse is the model. Jack’s exhibition You and Iis an introspective documentary series following a young artist attempting to understand the physical and mental impacts of living with muscular dystrophy. The exhibition is currently on show at the gallery until 9 September 2023 as part of the Interventions: Gallery Reset initiative.
The session is suitable for all ages and abilities, whether you want to try something new or are looking for an excuse to practise your drawing skills. Materials are provided but you are welcome to bring your own too - easels are available on a first come first serve basis.
This session is free but there are limited spaces available so booking via Eventbrite is required.
Join us on Saturday 19 August for an hour long session where you will learn how to make your own cyanotypes! BSL interpretation is provided for this session.
Cyanotypes are a form of cameraless photography where objects are placed onto a light-sensitive surface which is then exposed to daylight, creating a monochrome image.
This workshop is free and all materials are provided. Booking is not required.
Make sure you check out some of the other events taking place on the same day - two walk and talks around the exhibition with the artist Jack Moyse.
We have organised a series of walk and talk sessions with the artist Jack Moyse including weekday and weekend, Welsh language and BSL interpreted, so we hope that there is something for everyone. Jack will be here to guide you around the exhibition and give a unique perspective on his work and how the exhibition came to fruition. He will also be able to answer any questions you might have.
For those of you who can’t make it on those dates, we will also be live streaming one of these sessions so you can either join us online from where you are, or catch up at a later date. More details to follow.
We have organised a series of walk and talk sessions with the artist Jack Moyse including weekday and weekend, Welsh language and BSL interpreted, so we hope that there is something for everyone. Jack will be here to guide you around the exhibition and give a unique perspective on his work and how the exhibition came to fruition. He will also be able to answer any questions you might have.
For those of you who can’t make it on those dates, we will also be live streaming one of these sessions so you can either join us online from where you are, or catch up at a later date. More details to follow.
We have organised a series of walk and talk sessions with the artist Jack Moyse including weekday and weekend, Welsh language and BSL interpreted, so we hope that there is something for everyone. Jack will be here to guide you around the exhibition and give a unique perspective on his work and how the exhibition came to fruition. He will also be able to answer any questions you might have.
For those of you who can’t make it on those dates, we will also be live streaming one of these sessions so you can either join us online from where you are, or catch up at a later date. More details to follow.
For the first time at Ffotogallery, members of the public are invited to visit the gallery while the exhibition is being installed, between 12 - 7pm on Thursday 3 August. Visitors will be able to interact with the artist and Ffotogallery staff from a viewing gallery, so this is the perfect opportunity to learn more about the curatorial and technical process of putting up an exhibition.
The exhibition features the work of Swansea-based artist and photographer Jack Moyse. Excerpts from Jack’s project What it’s like (being me) will be on display throughout August, alongside new work and a programme of events and performance pieces.
The gallery will be open as normal from Friday 4 August until Saturday 9 September. Our regular gallery opening hours are Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 5pm.
Earlier this year, Swansea-based photographer and artist Jack Moyse was invited to rethink the entire gallery space - both physically and metaphorically - after winning the Interventions: Gallery Reset open call in partnership with Disability Arts Cymru.
New and existing works from Jack’s project You and I will be on display throughout August, accompanied by a programme of events and performance pieces.
You and I is an introspective documentary series following a young artist attempting to understand the physical and mental impacts of living with the disability with which he was diagnosed aged 17. His reflections form the basis of a narrative that encompasses some of the many issues people living with debilities encounter including romance, parenthood and prejudice.
Based primarily in photography, the project questions ableist attitudes from the viewpoint of the lived disabled experience, offering insight into the life of a marginalised group often overlooked by society.
Interventions: Gallery Reset is a series of gallery ‘takeovers' made possible with Art Fund’s ‘Reimagine’ grant, providing new opportunities for artists to experiment, challenge and ask provocative questions, with a focus on themes such as identity, migration, gender, social inequality and the environment.
In June 2023, a group of refugees and asylum seekers who attend Oasis Cardiff came together to participate in three photography workshops: creating photograms and cyanotypes, a documentary photography focussed photo walk and a portrait studio workshop. They worked with professional photographer Dafydd Owen and Ffotogallery to learn about the basics of photography and applied their learning to capture their own images. This exhibition is made up of a selection of the outcomes from those workshops and aims to give us an insight into how the participants view the city of Cardiff.
The exhibition is part of a programme of events for Tafwyl Festival 2023 Fringe week.
On Thursday 13 July from 6.30pm we are pleased to host a second artist talk in conjunction with the Assignments 23 exhibition. We will be joined by award-winning photographer and member of The BPPA, Chris Fairweather.
Chris is a staff photographer and Head of Pictures & Video development at Huw Evans Picture Agency, the leading photographic agency in Wales. Upon finishing school, he embarked on his professional journey in his native Gloucestershire, working for agency Thousand Word Media. Seeking further growth, he ventured to Leeds, where he took up a photographer's role at Ross Parry News & Picture Agency.
In 2013, Chris relocated to Cardiff, a city that has become a canvas for his photographic storytelling. During this time he’s captured various facets of life in South Wales, events such as Rugby World Cups, visits from royalty, breaking news stories, and diverse commercial projects. This year - 2023 - marks a significant milestone of a decade since Chris made South Wales his home. During this event he will share memories and showcase his favourite images, illustrating the essence of his remarkable journey in Wales.
We hope you can join us at Ffotogallery on Wednesday 28 June from 6pm for a special ‘in conversation’ event between Reuters photojournalist Hannah McKay and Chair of The BPPA Paul Ellis. This event is part of a series of talks taking place alongside the current exhibition ‘Assignments 23’ in partnership with the British Press Photographers’ Association.
Hannah McKay is a staff photographer for Reuters based in London. She covers a variety of news, sport and features. Hannah completed a BA (Hons) in Photography at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in 2009 before gaining industry experience as an intern for The Coventry Telegraph newspaper. In 2012 Hannah moved to London as a photographer for a regional photo agency before freelancing for international wire agencies. Joining Reuters in 2017, Hannah has had the opportunity to work on assignments worldwide, including; an Olympic Games, the Fifa World Cup, the Migrant Caravan, a Royal Wedding, Funeral and Coronation, the US Presidential Election and the Queen’s Funeral. Hannah was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis. She won The Guardian’s Agency Photographer of the Year and her work has been recognised by the British Journalism Awards, The Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, The British Press Photographers’ Association (The BPPA) and the International Photography Awards (IPA).
Paul Ellis has been an Agence France-Presse staff photographer in the north of England for 17 years covering pretty much anything and everything that happens. A lot of sport, but often breaking news, royal visits and political events in this country and abroad. He is the chair of The BPPA. A role that he is incredibly proud of ensuring, the association’s commitment to promoting photojournalism and press photography. He studied photojournalism with the NCTJ in Sheffield more than 25 years ago, working at weekly and regional newspapers, local and national press agencies, as a freelance for national newspapers and internationally with The Associated Press and now AFP.
To celebrate Refugee Week 2023 (19th - 25th June) Ffotogallery are proud to hold a special screening of the short film Samos On Fire - Songs In Asylum on the evening of Thursday 22nd June at 6pm.
We will be joined by director Fareid Atta for an introduction to the film and a Q&A session afterwards.
Free Entry - Booking required via Eventbrite.
Film synopsis:
Part of solving the refugee crisis in Greece is showing Europe what these amazing individuals have to offer. This film is an attempt to show the positive sides of life as a refugee, and gives a small insight into the individuals themselves.
To show how music, and creativity has the power to transform lives. To show how refugees never lose hope in spite of the uncertainty of the asylum process, their living conditions and their dreams of a life outside the camp…
In a refugee camp in Samos, a group of musicians from Africa and the Middle East meet up to make music. There is no stopping their sessions even though they have had to contend with fires, earthquakes, and worst of all…the bewildering asylum process.
The style of the documentary is cinema verité and the mode, poetic. The footage aims at creating a juxtaposition between the chaotic and dire conditions of the Vathy camp, and the joy of singing, musical instruments, and dance.
Ultimately, the documentary aims to portray the lives of these musicians and artists with all the accompanying sorrow, disappointment, but also the glimmers of gaiety in the camp.
Samos on Fire Director, Fareid Atta, said:
“I see the doc as an attempt to show the positive side of the refugee' experience, but more importantly — to show the hopeful attitude individuals brought with them to every moment — no matter how dull or soul-destroying that moment turned out to be.”
We hope you can join us from 6pm on Thursday 8th June for the exhibition preview of Assignments 23, where we will also be joined by multi-award winning photographer and filmmaker Joann Randles who will be sharing a presentation of her work from 7.45pm.
This year’s exhibition covers stories from July 2021 through to the Spring of 2023 and features everything from sports and entertainment to politics and protests with royals, celebrities, and global events as seen through the eyes of the association’s photographers.
From filmmaker to photographer. Joann’s photojournalism career kick-started in January 2021, during the second year of the covid pandemic, after being acknowledged by The Daily Express and V&A who exhibited one of her images in the prestigious museum. What was initially a creative outlet during the pandemic, Joann soon began to transpose her skills from filmmaking to be utilised in photography, from researching stories to finding her own photographic style, particularly in portraiture. In 2022 Joann won the Journalists Charity Wales Media Awards ‘Photographer of the Year,’ Peoples Choice Award in the ‘Portrait’ category of the British Photography Awards and Winner of the BPPA Portrait category.
Ffotogallery are happy to announce the rescheduled date for an evening of song with Choir With No Name and Choirs For Good on Wednesday 17th May, 6-8pm.
The Choir with No Name have been successfully running choirs and building joyful communities with homeless and marginalised people since 2008. There are six choirs across the UK. The Cardiff choir, run in partnership with the Wallich, was launched in 2021.
Choir With No Name is founded on the premise that singing makes you feel good; it distracts you from all the nonsense in life and helps you to build confidence, skills and genuine, long lasting friendships.
Choirs For Good are a network of community wellbeing choirs. They exist to promote the importance and benefits of community singing, not just upon an individual's physical and mental wellbeing, but also the many wonderful ways that choirs can unite people and contribute back to their local communities and realise their potential in wider society.
During the evening both choirs will perform some beautiful songs for us as well as deliver a short workshop where we can all get involved and experience the power of song to improve our well being, so it is fitting that this event will take place during Mental Health Awareness Week.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have unfortunately had to postpone tomorrow's discussion 'Robert Frank Redux'. Keep an eye on our website and social media where we hope to announce a new date soon. We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.
With Robert Frank’s passing in 2019, the time is ripe for a re-appraisal of his immensely varied oeuvre. Taking Frank’s adage ‘I’m always looking outside, trying to look inside” as its starting point, this session on the Swiss/American photographer will re-examine the formal and emotional properties of Frank’s work and in the process trace his move from being the quintessential ‘outsider’ documentarian of America in the 1950s to his allegedly more ‘inward’ photography and film work from the 1960s onwards. The session will look both at his early iconic work The Americans (1958), the nature of iconicity within this work, and Frank’s later use of polaroids, films, and video as a way to inscribe meaning into the frame through writing, fragmentation, and other forms of articulation.
Speakers and Papers:
1. Sarah Garland, Senior Lecturer in American Studies, (U. of East Anglia): ‘Thinking through the icon: Robert Frank’s The Americans (1958)’
2. Nicolo Giudice, Course Leader of Photography, (U. of Bedfordshire): ‘“Reading the lines of his hand” – Robert Frank’s Re-edition of The Lines of My Hand (1972, 1989)’
3. Caroline Blinder, Reader in American Literature and Culture, (Goldsmiths): ‘Possessions and Souvenirs: The Grammar of Objects in Robert Frank’s Still Life Polaroids’
4. Mark Durden, Professor of Photography (U. of South Wales): ‘“Trying to Look Inside”: On The Films and Videos of Robert Frank’
Image: Hold Still-Keep Going, 1989. From the Robert Frank Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
We understand that not everybody has the opportunity to study at Higher Education level, or it may have been some time since you did, which is why we are introducing the Higgins Open Call specifically for photographers who are in the process of developing their photographic vision, and who aren't currently studying the arts at higher education level.
This series of talks will launch the open call in April, to introduce the different viewpoints and work of the professional photographers who will be acting as mentors to the scheme participants. After presenting an overview of significant themes and projects in their work, there will be an opportunity for prospective applicants to the Higgins Initiative and current Ffocws scheme cohort to book a slot with the guest speaker to show and discuss aspects of their own work.
Programme
Saturday 22 April, 3.15 - 4.15pm, at Ffotogallery - Paul Cabuts
Paul Cabuts uses photography to examine the visual history of the Valleys of south Wales in the UK. A recipient of a Creative Wales Award from the Arts Council of Wales, Cabuts has been commissioned to work on numerous photography projects including the BBC’s BAFTA Cymru Award winning Capture Wales project.
Saturday 29 April, 6.30 - 9pm, at Cardiff MADE - Michal Iwanowski Michal Iwanowski is a Cardiff based artist and a lecturer in photography at Cardiff Metropolitan University. He is interested in the themes of migration, (national) identity, belonging and loss. His work can be found in the permanent collection of international institutions, including Museum of Contemporary art in Zagreb and the National Museum of Wales.
Saturday 13 May, 6.30 - 9pm, at Cardiff MADE - Abbie Trayler-Smith - BOOK NOW
Abbie Trayler-Smith is an acclaimed portrait and documentary photographer, specialising in capturing people’s reactions and responses to contemporary events and social issues. Often challenging, sometimes tinged with wry humour, but always beautifully created, Abbie’s work is exquisitely personal and naturally observational.
Saturday 20 May, 2 - 4.30pm, at Ffotogallery - Paul Reas - BOOK NOW
Paul Reas is a photographer and educator. He recently retired as the Course Leader of the Documentary Photography course at the University of South Wales in Cardiff. Paul has worked commercially and editorially for many years and publishes, and exhibits work internationally. His work is represented by the James Hyman Gallery in London.
Saturday 27 May, 2 - 4.30pm & 6.30 - 9pm, online and at Cardiff MADE
Clementine Schneidermann (online) - BOOK NOW Faye Chamberlain (Cardiff MADE) - BOOK NOW
Clémentine Schneidermann is a French photographer. Since 2013 she has worked on several long term projects in South Wales and internationally. Faye Chamberlain has worked consistently as a professional photographic artist since 1996. She has a proven track record of producing innovative works... tailored to specific audiences and environments.'
Please join us for a day of joyful creativities! We will have badge making, zine workshops, a giant collaborative art piece for anyone and everyone to contribute to and more! We want to bring LGBTQ+ parents with their children and queer youth together to connect and create to celebrate our wonderfully vibrant rainbow community.
We will also be having a special guest do storytime with the kids!
What does it mean to be a rainbow family? We want to explore this and give a space for queer families and youth to express themselves in whatever way they choose with paint, glue, glitter and a whole lotta love.
This Summer we are delighted to present ‘Assignments23’ at Ffotogallery, in what will be its first time travelling to Wales. Organised by the British Press Photographers’ Association (BPPA), this flagship exhibition will feature the best in British press photography selected from an open call. This follows its initial ten day run at London’s Bargehouse on the Southbank in May.
We are excited to host the ‘Assignments23’ exhibition here at Ffotogallery, not only as it’s the first time being exhibited in Wales, but also as it showcases photographs that will play a vital role in helping us to remember and reflect on some of the key events to have taken place in the UK in the last year.
“The BPPA are delighted to bring ‘Assignments23’ to Wales for the first time following on from our London exhibition. It is our aim to take the photographs on from their initial showing to other parts of the UK, giving them a wider audience and we’re delighted to be working with Ffotogallery to bring this incredible representation of British press photography to Cardiff.” - Chair of the BPPA Paul Ellis
Faadi/Y Stafell Fyw/The Living Room is an intergenerational photography and fashion project sharing intimate family settings within Somali Welsh homes. With an emphasis on celebration, the project includes images of young local models in bridal wear, community members modelling cultural clothing such as Hidyaah Dhaqan and Diraq, brotherhood and soft masculinity and the traditional dance of Ciyaar Somali.
Around 40-50 community members participated in this photoshoot, either as models, dancers or providing materials and traditional clothing. This is the first intergenerational project which showcases the Welsh Somali experience and life with an emphasis on the young women in the community. The revival of the traditional dance Ciyaar Somali in the past year has been an excellent opportunity for younger community members to connect to their cultural heritage, and as a wedding and celebratory dance, we thought it would be important to document this very important moment for the Welsh Somali community in Cardiff.
This project is a collaboration between Asma Elmi, founder and creative director of Al Naeem, and Young Queens. Al Naeem is a magazine which centres on Black and Muslim fashion, photography and art. Young Queens is an arts group for young Welsh Somali women from Cardiff, founded by Hayaat Women’s Trust, with funding support from Heritage Lottery.
Credits
Directed by Asma Elmi
Executive Producer: Izzy Rabey
Photographer: Yasmin Jama
Videographer: Saif
Stylist & Set Design: Asma Elmi, Haida Hamidi
Cast: Young Queens, Marwah Ahmed, Nadia Nur, Muna Ali, Mohamed Hassan, Kamal Yussuf
Thank you to: Al Naaem Magazine, Young Queens, Hayaat Women’s Trust, Heavenly Boutique, Blossom Bay Events
Join us on Saturday 22 April, from 12-5pm for our next Photo Book Fair!
The day will include talks from Paul Cabuts, David Barnes, Alejandro Acīn & Sebastian Bruno, a bookbinding technique workshop with Bill Chambers and a brilliant variety of stall holders, including Offline Journal, Vaine Magazine, Spacecraft Magazine, Elijah Thomas, Yellow Back Books, Bartosz Nowicki, ICVL, 2TenBooks and more!
See the full schedule below:
12.00 - Doors open
12.30 - Alejandro Acín & Sebastian Bruno in conversation
13.00 - Bill Chambers: An Introduction to Hand-Made Books (limited spaces - first come, first serve)
15.15 - Paul Cabuts talk with David Barnes & Brian Carroll, Offline Journal
Join us on Thursday 16th February for a conversation on the ethics of photography during and after conflicts, coinciding with our current exhibition, We Are Here, Because You Were There: Afghan Interpreters in the UK.
We are thrilled to be joined by the following panellists;
Nelly Ating, a photojournalist whose work focuses on questions of identity, activism, education, extremism, and migration;
Tudor Etchells, a photographer, researcher and human rights lawyer for clients in the migration system;
Benjamin Chesterton, co-founder of the award-winning film production company duckrabbit;
Andy Barnham, a photographer and veteran who served as an officer in the Royal Artillery, deploying on operational tours multiple times to Iraq, Cyprus and Afghanistan where he documented his experiences.
Chaired by our director Siân Addicott, our panel of contemporary photographers and filmmakers will discuss their personal approaches to documenting people and places impacted by acts of war.
We look forward to an evening of engaging and perceptive discourse from our panellists and audience. The exhibition We Are Here, Because You Were There: Afghan Interpreters in the UK continues until 25 March, open Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 5pm.
Join us at the Riverfront on Thursday 9th February, 6pm, when we bring our current exhibition We Are Here, Because You Were There to Newport through discussions and a projection installation!
This promises to be an engaging evening where we can focus on the situation of Afghan interpreters who had to flee their homes following the withdrawal of foreign troops and resettlement in the UK. All are welcome to join us and help to carry on the conversation.
The timings for the evening are:
6pm - Welcome - Riverfront foyer
6.15 - 6.30pm - Outdoor installation: Join us at Newport’s Wave to see projections of a short film created from images and audio in the exhibition shown against the side of the Riverfront building.
6.45 - 7.45pm - Panel discussion - The Resettlement of Afghan Interpreters in the UK and Newport as a City of Sanctuary.
The café will be open afterwards for refreshments.
Throughout the evening, artist Stephanie Roberts will also be running a free drop-in mosaic making workshop.
Chair: Dylan Moore
Panelists: Ali (interpreter), Mark Seymour, Sara de Jong
Join us on Saturday 28th January for an afternoon packed full of inspirational talks, shared experiences and lively debate, focussed on the subjects raised in We Are Here, Because You Were There: Afghan Interpreters in the UK.
12.30pm - Project talk from co-creators photographer Andy Barnham and academic Sara De Jong.
2pm - Shared lived experiences from Afghan Interpreters
3.30pm - Panel Discussion - Resettlement in the UK and Wales: A Nation of Sanctuary
Please note - due to the importance of retaining anonymity for the interpreters who have kindly offered to share their experiences with us, there will be strictly no photography or videography permitted at this event/these events.
On Friday 13th January 2023 Ffotogallery will be hosting an evening event for The Female Line with guest speaker Adeola Dewis.
Specifically for women of colour, this event will provide and create a safe space for women to develop connections and creative responses to shared concerns, issues and ideas, with an invited speaker to inspire the conversations.
Adeola is an artist and researcher. Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, she has keen interests in ritual, folk and indigenous cultural performances. She is particularly drawn to performance aesthetics within the Trinidad Carnival and masquerades and the potential ways in which an understanding of these and other manifestations of emancipatory performances, is relevant to art-making or art presentations for individuals or groups experiencing forms of displacement and social anxiety within the diaspora. Her work engages performances of transformation and explores ways of re-presenting self. Her life and experiences as a mother and Caribbean immigrant has informed aspects of her practice and continue to contribute to the ways in which her work takes shape.
Adeola will be speaking about her journey so far, looking at questions around home, masking and belonging. She will also be leading a creative workshop around mask making.
The Female Line is a space for those who identify as female working in the creative sector to meet, connect and share. Regular in-person events with guest speakers and an online group bring those who identify as female together in Cardiff, South Wales. With specific community groups and events for those who identify as non-binary and women of colour. Delivered by Her Mark. and Cardiff MADE in partnership with Ffotogallery.
This partnership and event is thanks to funding from Arts Council Wales.
In January 2023, Ffotogallery is proud to present a new exhibition ‘We Are Here, Because You Were There’, a collaborative project by photographer Andy Barnham and researcher Dr Sara de Jong. The work uses portraiture and quotes to document the experiences of Afghan interpreters employed by the British Army who recently resettled to the UK.
Photographer Andy Barnham has edited the portraits to help anonymise the interpreters still at risk, and have family in Afghanistan who are under threat. The portraits presented are a composite of up to a dozen frames which have been blurred or pixelated and then overlaid to present a final portrait. This process can also be seen as inflicting trauma on the portraits, in acknowledgement of events experienced when serving with NATO forces and escaping Afghanistan.
The quotes are from in-depth interviews conducted by Sara de Jong, which cover the Afghan interpreters’ motivations to work for the British Armed Forces, their working alongside soldiers, the threats they faced in Afghanistan, their evacuation, their early experiences in the UK and hopes for the future for themselves and their families.
Focussing on Afghan interpreters’ own stories invites viewers to engage with the people behind the headlines, and encourages reflection on the deep entanglement between the UK and Afghanistan. Together their individual stories and images reflect the structural and lasting impact of Britain’s military employment practices, immigration laws and foreign policy.
At Ffotogallery we love the highs of the festive holidays! But we also know that January can be a bit of a comedown after all those celebrations, during a cold, dark month. So we thought that having a fun project to focus on might help to lift all of our spirits.
Join us throughout January for the Pick-Me-Up Photo Journal Challenge! Create a photographic journal with daily prompts designed to help with our well being and to inspire us to look for the positives all around us. Every day we’ll post a new word as a cue to create a photograph. At the end of the month, we will hold an online workshop demonstrating how to create an e-journal of your photos which can then be ordered as a physical printed journal should you wish. We have also created a Facebook group where you can share your photos with everyone else throughout the challenge if you’d like to.
If you can join in the challenge everyday, fantastic - but above all this should be an enjoyable and fun project so if you want to drop in and out as you have time that’s great too, no pressure! You can join us for the online workshop, share your photos with others joining in the project in our Facebook group or just keep your photos as an uplifting collection of January memories.
The project will start on January 1st 2023 and run everyday until January 31st. Keep track of the daily prompts on social media stories or through the Facebook group. (Please remember that this is a public group. Please be kind and remember that shared images should be appropriate for all.)
Or you can upload your photos to this shared folder.
Join in on the challenge!
Rules
By participating in this event, you agree to the following conditions:
Participants retain ownership and copyright of their submitted photographs. Entries may be published online at Ffotogallery’s discretion. Use of images will be restricted to promotion, publicity, news, or informational education or awareness usage of Ffotogallery.
Participants agree that they created the photographs and/or that they are authorised to use the photographs as submitted. Co-authors and as relevant original sources should be referenced or credited and our use of the photographs for online publication will not infringe on third party’s copyright or other rights.
with guest speaker, Frances Abigail Bolley At Ffotogallery, Cardiff
CONNECT SHARE INSPIRE
The MADE Line is a community event specifically for Queer Women and Non-Binary people. Providing a safe space to meet, connect, share and hear from the guest speakers. During the December event, musician, composer and artist, Frances Abigail Bolley will talk about her work that is concerned with humanness, what it is to be alive; her praxis is concerned with tuning into the moment, learning to be attentive and poised in the present.
The Resilience of Play: Talk
"Improvisation is central to my creative practice. Through examples of my work (including visual and audio art) I hope to tell but mostly show how that foundational improvisation practice informs the wide range of work I make, including my embroidery, performance art, scratch work and songs."
Get festive with Ffotogallery at our Christmas Family Fun Day!
Join in on Saturday 10th December for a festive fun filled day of drop in workshops, games and activities.
You can get creative with photo collage, make some festive badges, play Christmas themed challenges, have fun with board games and more!
Open to all with FREE Entry
If you can't make it on the day, then you can still join in the festive fun by downloading the Christmas activity booklet below to print and complete at home!
We warmly invite you to join us for a series of online workshops with the twelve artists selected for Ffocws.
Tuesday 22nd of November 2 - 4pm
Ed Worthington, Kerry Woolman, Laurie Broughton, and Paris Tankard
Wednesday 23rd of November 2 - 4pm
Ada Marino, Pinar Köksal, Ross Gardner, and Laurentina Miksys
Thursday 24th of November 2 - 4pm
Alice Durham, Dione Jones, Billy H. Osborn, and Jack Winbow
Ffocws is part of Ffotogallery’s mission to support emerging and early career artists.
These online artist workshops are an opportunity to engage with the artists and learn from them about their practice. The twelve artists selected for Ffocws will each be speaking about their work.
The aim for the workshops is to foster spaces for critical discourse and create materials that support people’s understanding of the work that is being produced by early career and emerging visual artists in and from Wales.
The questions addressed will include:
• How do you think transparency amongst artists and institutions/organisations can be achieved?
• What do you wish you knew about the visual arts industry before you started? And what advice can you offer your peers?
• How can we ensure that audiences gain genuine insight, understanding and meaning from your work.
• What are some of the experiences and challenges early career artists face when working as a visual artist today?
This series of workshops is taking place online via Zoom. They are open to all and free of charge, but booking is essential. Details on how to join the online event will be emailed to you closer to the date.
If you have any access requirements, please contact Alex Butler on [email protected] prior to the event and we will do our best to provide the relevant support.
We are delighted that our touring exhibition More Than A Number will be on display at Trinity Arts Centre, Bristol, as part of Afrika Eye Festival in November 2022. Download the full events programme below.
7th - 15th November, The Graffiti Room @ Trinity Centre, Bristol.
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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.
Join documentary photographer Anthony Jones at Ffotogallery on Saturday 19th November to talk about his recent work Y Wal Goch (The Red Wall).
Y Wal Goch is a name many will know as the name given to the Welsh national football team’s supporters. The project, of the same name, sets out to explore these fans. This is a documentary look at the Welsh football fans, the culture and the passion they have become almost world famous for. Focusing mainly on the fans, it is a quintessential look at the culture and passion the Welsh fans have for the game. During the talk Anthony will discuss this culture and passion as well as how he achieved the photographs used in the project.
The exhibition continues until Saturday 14 January 2022
Featured artists: Ada Marino, Alice Durham, Billy H. Osborn, Ed Worthington, Dione Jones, Laurentina Miksys, Laurie Broughton, Kerry Woolman, Jack Winbow, Pinar Köksal, Paris Tankard, Ross Gardner.
Ffotogallery understands that for many early career artists, feelings of uncertainty about the future can be emotionally draining, and reports of dwindling opportunities, adding greater uncertainty to an already precarious vocation, create negative mental pressure. Being an artist runs deeper than materials, needs and habits but is about testing the current situation that confronts you. Therefore, Ffotogallery is committed to its guiding principles of promoting greater cultural diversity, access and inclusion, lifelong learning, innovation and excellence.
Ffocws
is part of Ffotogallery’s mission to support emerging and early career artists. It looks to survey recent graduates who have studied visual arts in Wales as well as offer opportunities to those who have not been in a formal art and creative education. Working in partnership with higher education institutions (HEIs) in Wales, Ffotogallery presents the work of twelve brilliant artists who are challenging the process, medium and application of photography. Ada Marino, Alice Durham, Billy H. Osborn, Ed Worthington, Dione Jones, Laurentina Miksys, Laurie Broughton, Kerry Woolman, Jack Winbow, Pinar Köksal, Paris Tankard, and Ross Gardner are creating work that inspires new interpretations and perspectives. As well as displaying their work in Wales’ leading photographic organisation, the artists will be supported with a tailored six-month professional development programme.
Ffotogallery’s Director Siân Addicott comments:
“We are really delighted to be exhibiting this wonderful selection of emerging talent at Ffotogallery. The range of subject matter, techniques and distinct styles on show highlight the depth of photographic creativity in Wales.
Through Ffocws we aim to provide some essential, tailored career support and networking opportunities to help the artists on their professional journeys - especially at these challenging early career stages.”
Ffotogallery would like to thank University of South Wales and University of Wales Trinity St David / Swansea College of Art for their generous support in making this exhibition possible.
Peter Finnemore will discuss the 5 year evolution of a new body of work and his working processes that grew into the new photobook and exhibition - Looking For Signs. This is a welsh language event.
This competition took place in 2022 and has now closed.
We’re running a spooky Halloween photo competition from 1st October!
Send us your creepiest, eeriest, spine-chilling photos to be in with a chance of winning some Ffotogallery goodies! Get creative with costumes and experiment with lighting to create some spooktacular photos. We’ll share our favourites on social media on the big day - plus, all entries will be included in a special online gallery on our website.
Send your entries to [email protected] by Wednesday 26th October to be in with a chance of winning. Make sure you include your name and where you’re from in your email. Entries limited to 2 per person.
First prize will include a Ffotogallery tote bag, a copy of the Ffotogallery book Chronicle, a Ffotogallery pin badge and a framed print of your photo. Runners up will receive a Ffotogallery pin badge.
We are delighted to present Peter Finnemore’s work ‘Looking for Signs’ as a pop up exhibition at our gallery in Cathays, to celebrate the release of his new photobook of the same name.
Join us from 6pm on Thursday 6 October for the official book launch and exhibition opening event.
This body of work is a distinct photographic and text art project, made and inspired from two trips to India in 2017 & 2018, the second of which was commissioned by Ffotogallery as part of the Dreamtigers India Wales Project, marking 70 years of Indian independence.
"Looking For Signs is an experience of India made through the expressive frame of a hand held camera. The snapshot vision is used as a means of fluid and creative documentation of social spaces and experiences of the self, set in the atmosphere and dynamic arena of India. The artistic territory of this art is located within existential, abstract and fragmented social encounters. A fleeting convergence of appearances and dissolutions, where self and other, collide and merge through the meeting point of a camera. The snapshot aesthetic, with its ease, its lack of hierarchies and pictorial energy is utilized here within the broad language of fine art, where meaning is open, expanded and uncertain. These subjective photographs of travel are made in the mind, where the camera mediates between appearance, experience and idea. My motivation is one of a pilgrim and not a tourist.
This book is an unfolding of time and narrative, a cinematic flow of appearances. The sense of movement and journey is also embedded in the images themselves where social encounters with appearances unfold ‘as a passing show’. Here expressive picture making collides and entangles with the specificity and ecosystem of communities, culture and drama of place.
India is a complex, dynamic, deep-rooted enlightened culture, containing dualities and social contrasts. Alongside this experience of the subcontinent of India, there is a self-awareness of the dynamics of the outsider as image-maker. Equally celebrated here are encounters with a diverse range of images, artefacts and signages as they are presented, displayed and experienced within public spaces. Collectively here they speak of representation and its complexity.”
- Peter Finnemore
Looking for Signs is available to buy from Ffotogallery’s online shop and gallery bookshop.
Join us on Saturday 15 October for a day of events celebrating the photo book. We will be starting at 11am with a special Welsh language artist talk from Peter Finnemore, and later on from 2pm he will be joined in conversation by Alejandro Acin, an artist, designer and educator, and founder of IC Visual Lab in Bristol.
Between 12 – 3.30pm we have an exciting line-up of stalls for you to browse with holders including Offline Journal, Nawr Magazine, 103 Books, iPigeon, Ffotogallery and more – plus you will be able to get your hands on some Ffotogallery publications at great prices.
Schedule
11.00 - 11.45am Peter Finnemore Artist Talk (Welsh medium) - book tickets
12.00 - 3.30pm Doors open to general public and book fair starts
From 16 September, we are delighted to be able to showcase the artistic outcomes from two community outreach projects in partnership with Oasis Cardiff and Engage Cymru in this pop-up exhibition in our gallery in Cathays.
Restore - Photography Project with Oasis
In 2022, Ffotogallery partnered with Oasis Cardiff to create Restore, a photography project supporting refugees and asylum seekers.
The project provided an opportunity for people with a range of skills - from complete beginners to those looking to establish careers within photography - to engage with photography in a variety of ways. Participants explored a range of photographic practices, techniques and equipment from photomontage, to a photo walk through Cefn Onn, to using disposable cameras and taking portraits on professional cameras in a mobile studio setting. They were supported by professional artist Tudor Etchells throughout the process.
Following its initial showcase at Oasis Cardiff earlier in the year, Ffotogallery are proud to host this exhibition displaying the incredible creative outcomes of those who took part.
Change Makers
The Change Makers project is a collaborative approach to diversify the workforce by providing opportunities for young people to access and progress in the creative industries in Wales.
Engage Cymru partnered with Eyst, Cardiff Fusion, Unify Artists Collective, Wales Millennium Centre, Ziba Creative and Ffotogallery to support a group of young people from diverse backgrounds in Cardiff in working towards their Bronze Arts Award, a Level 1 qualification on the Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) open to young people aged 11 to 25.
The group of young individuals took part in a wide variety of experiences including practical workshops from leading local artists; visits to galleries and urban art sites; they were audience members at a leading musical; they learned how to present a radio show; and they explored their own preferred artforms over a six month programme. They pursued their own interests in a variety of media and shared their knowledge with their peers.
They all passed their Bronze Arts Award with flying colours and Ffotogallery is proud to be able to share their creative outcomes with a wider audience in this exhibition of their final work.
Where Will I Be is an exhibition featuring two Welsh photographers, Walter Waygood and Huw Alden Davies, whose work is rooted in the place they come from, the South Wales Valleys, and revolves around their immediate family, friends and a colourful cast of local characters.
Walter Waygood, who photographed in Blaenafon and Merthyr in the late 1970s and early 1980s, sees 'beauty in the ordinary' and nobility in the lives of the people he grew up with, however mixed their fortunes turned out to be.
Arranged as a collection of photographs and short texts, Huw Alden Davies’ ‘Prince’ is a detailed and often humorous study of the artist’s father. The story unfolds in the village of Tumble, where Davies and his family still live.
Where Will I Be is part of a series of exhibitions and projects Ffotogallery is undertaking which explore social, cultural and environmental issues in the context of contemporary Wales. Our aim is to highlight the role of photography, as arguably the world’s most democratic and visible medium, to record current experiences as lived, and to represent the processes of social, economic and cultural transformation that inform Wales’ identity and its standing in the world.
Emerging from the economic and social fallout of the decline of the region’s heavy industries, communities in south Wales are re-defining themselves for a new future.
in solution offers a series of evolving and interconnected strands that explore the active processes and changing ideas of culture in contemporary society and the tensions between a local experience of place and an increasingly global world.
The work considers nuances and unseen particularities of community life, ranging from often overlooked processes of environmental change or rural development, to the various subtle systems that can be seen to affect 'lived' experience and inter-generational change. in solution
also questions the complex histories and ideologies that impact on our lives and the way in which ideas and systems become more or less dominant with the passing of time.
“Structures of feeling can be defined as social experiences in solution. 'Feeling' is chosen to emphasize a distinction from more formal concepts of 'world view' or 'ideology'. It is not only that we must go beyond formally held and systematic beliefs, though of course we always have to include them. It is that we are concerned with meanings and values that are actively lived and felt, and the relations between these and formal or systematic beliefs [Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature 1977]
This new Ffotogallery commission, supported by the Arts Council of Wales and Caerphilly County Borough Council, reflects Barnes’ work over the last four years. As a continuation of his long-term preoccupation with life and history in the region, in solution explores the competing forces that shape social identity and cultural change.
Artists: Raz Golestani, Hadise Hosaini, Mehregan Kazemi, Amak Mahmoodian, Sharare Mossavi, Raoofe Roostami, Mohsen Shahmardi, Arya Tabandepoor, Mohsen Yazdipoor Bi Nam is a group exhibition representing the work of nine contemporary Iranian photographers. The photographic and video content of the exhibition explores the cultural and social life of modern Iran, with an emphasis on religion, gender and identity. Using a structure that evokes the classic Middle Eastern collection of stories One Thousand and One Nights, Bi Nam explores the subtleties of everyday life in contemporary Iran and specific codes of conduct that influence a person’s mood, behaviour, relationships and sense of self. There is an undertone of sadness and longing, but also one of beauty, love and devotion. Amak Mahmoodian, one of the participating artists and the exhibition curator, describes the exhibition as ‘quiet thoughts from modest photographers for whom the essence of culture is in the display of their works.’
Originally exhibited at Ffotogallery’s Turner House in Penarth in 2012, Bi Nam will be travelling to Bristol Student’s Union, opening on Thursday 8th April. In conjunction with IC-Visual Lab and Bristol University, there will be an event towards the end of the exhibition, an evening with Danish-Iraqi artist Lina Hashim, and Amak Mahmoodian. The event will be held on Friday 29th April, from 7pm. Tickets cost £4 / £2 for ICVL members (payment on the door).
In July 2014, Lithuanian photographer Arturas Valiauga visited four National Trust properties in Wales as part of his European Prospects residency with Ffotogallery. At Dyffryn Gardens, Tredegar House, Plas Newydd and Penrhyn Castle he encountered the private and public faces of these historic places and the men and women who make up the community of people who look after them today. Thanks to the generous access granted by the National Trust Wales and the help given by its staff and volunteers, Valiauga was able to explore the four houses in all their aspects – behind the scenes and after closing time. His images encapsulate a moment in time in the lives of these places, which have since outlived those who built them. His quiet, poetic photographs celebrate the commitment of the people who ‘serve’ these houses and offer us a privileged insight.
We would like to thank the National Trust Wales for their generous support of this project, and the Lithuanian Cultural Institute and the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania, London.
What does it mean to be Welsh? If you want to integrate into the Welsh community, what should you wear, and how do you need to behave to be accepted?
These are some of the questions posed by Russian artist Jana Romanova in this body of work Adopted Welsh.
Developed as part of a Ffotogallery residency in 2015 within the European Prospects international programme, Romanova crowd sourced ideas, calling out to people across Wales with the question “If I was to become Welsh, what would my future here look like?”
Travelling across Wales, she did exactly what people suggested she should do – sing in a choir, play and watch rugby, join a historical re-enactment society, become a local schoolteacher.
This first exhibition of the resulting work shows in warm, and often hilarious, terms what it means for a Russian woman to become ‘adopted Welsh’. The exhibition will be presented in a new temporary city centre venue and Ffotogallery is delighted be partnering with Cardiff Contemporary for their third citywide festival with the theme “Communication”.
David Drake, Ffotogallery’s Director, comments
“Hailing from St Petersburg, Jana Romanova is a very exciting photographic artist and we are proud to be presenting her work during Cardiff Contemporary 2016. With a highly participatory approach, alongside her photography and video work the artist uses her own body and performance, questioning her own identity and exploring the different roles photography plays within our society”.
This Is Me! A Day of Creative Workshops Around the Theme of Identity
Ffotogallery is running a whole day of creative workshops on Saturday 6th August around the theme of Identity. Through practical activities, participants will have the opportunity to express their true selves in a safe space.
All materials, water and hot drinks will be provided.
Workshops and timings:
11am - 1pm Vignette Making Workshop
1 - 3pm Badge Making Workshop
3 - 5pm Zine Making Workshop
Vignette Making Workshop
Cath (Ffotogallery) will be running this creative workshop around themes of identity. Using a small lightbox as our setting, we will be creating your own mini universes by building vignettes from photos and collage. You can select from a range of prepared backgrounds and props to stage a space that tells the world all about you! You are also welcome to bring any small photographs along to add to your piece too. We will then use our phones to capture these mini worlds and make them all the more real.
Badge Making Workshop
Workshop outline: Join Reg of SPAF Collective as he gives you the lowdown on some of his favourite queer, political, protest and miscellaneous badges from the last few decades. You’re invited to make your own groovy DIY badges to celebrate Pride, bash the tories, or whatever you want! Bring along any newspapers or other thin paper ephemera that you’d like to collage onto a badge.
Zine Making Workshop
Joshua Jones will be running a zine-making workshop on identity. Workshop participants will consider how to express and explore their identity through collaged imagery, and thinking about how to incorporate text and materials. There will be some materials provided, including scissors, glue and paper, but please feel free to bring your own collaging materials.
Ffotogallery are excited to invite you to a very special panel discussion as part of our ‘Celebrating Pride at Ffotogallery’ Programme throughout August.
Paving The Way: How LGBTQ+ History Has Influenced Today's Community will provide the opportunity for us to consider how those who fought for current day equalities have helped to shape the modern day LGBTQ+ landscape - from the repeal of Section 28, to marriage equality, to use of language.
We are extremely honoured to be joined by historian Norena Shopland as host, and panellists Lisa Power, founder of Stonewall; Yan White of The Queer Emporium Cardiff; and Paris Tankard, Queer People Of Colour Photographer and Association Of Photographers Award Winner 2022.
This promises to be an insightful and engaging evening of stimulating conversation and we welcome you to share it with us.
Join us at our gallery on Thursday 18th August from 6-8pm.
A discussion between 2 photographers based in Wales, whose work responds to the themes of what it is to be queer artists living and working in rural areas of both Wales and Romania.
We’ll explore the importance of documenting encounters in these spaces, whilst also having the inevitable interactions in cities for the purpose of work and connection to larger queer communities.
Oros discusses the exploration of relationships through the lens documenting themes of intimacy, identity and the impact and implications of technology in connecting queer communities in this post pandemic era.
Davies’ focus will explore what it is to return back to live in Wales discovering new queer spaces after living and working in London, viewing and discovering rural areas exploring the the duality of analogue and digital imagery and what it is to be on and offline.
As part of our month-long programme of events to celebrate Pride at Ffotogallery, we will be hosting an evening of short films with LGBTQ+ themes on Friday 12th August.
Join us for an evening celebrating the amazing talent and stories on show in these wonderful short films! From filmmakers and directors to independent artists to incredible musicians, we’ve got a lineup that’s sure to excite, amuse and inspire!
Grab your popcorn on the way in and settle in for an evening of alternative movies.
Altered Images is a whole day workshop exploring experimental photographic processes around the theme of identity with Michal Iwanowski at the Old Laundry Rooms Darkrooms in Made In Roath Studios on Saturday 20th August.
The theme for the workshop will be exploration of colour and form in selected camera-less printing processes, from monochrome photograms, through cyanotypes, to anthotypes using natural materials growing in the Made in Roath garden. We will aim to use a variety of plants to cover the colours of the rainbow, depending on the flora available in the garden. But with the use of cyanotypes and turmeric we will at least have the yellow and blue to create a Ukrainian flag at least.
The practical activities will include:
Introduction to the workshop (examples of work we will be making, how to safely use the darkroom, health and safety, schedule).
Then we will work through three processes:
1. Photograms
2. Cyanotypes
3. Anthotypes
This event is free but booking is essential due to limited spaces.
Throughout August, Ffotogallery will host an incredible programme of special events celebrating the LGBTQ+ community.
Our month-long programme is as diverse as the community that we are celebrating and is sure to offer something for everyone. We have creative workshops, discussions, artists talks, films and much more lined-up all with a focus around LGBTQ+ subjects.
Paving The Way: How LGBTQ+ History Has Influenced Today’s Community. A panel discussion exploring intergenerational experiences will take place on Thursday 18th August, 6-8pm.
Altered Images: A whole day workshop exploring experimental photographic processes around the theme of identity with Michal Iwanowski at the Old Laundry Rooms Darkrooms in Made In Roath Studios on Saturday 20th August.
The Queer Emporium will also be taking over our shop space for the whole month.
All events are free. Booking is required for some events with limited spaces.
Further information with details of separate events will be available soon.
Watch out for our Instagram takeovers throughout the month too.
We are delighted to announce that More Than A Number
will be exhibited at a number of venues in Malmesbury as part of the 40th
edition of WOMAD 2022. Debuted during Diffusion Festival last year, More Than A Number features the work of twelve artists from ten African countries and is curated by Cynthia MaiWa Sitei. There will be exhibits across three different venues – Caerbladon, Malmesbury Library and the Abbey – and the exhibition runs from 20 – 30 July, with a launch event on Friday 22 July, 5-7.30pm, starting at the Library.
Find out more via Caerbladon’s website here, and you can read more about the exhibition below.
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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.
On Sunday 14th August join Aaron Lowe at 2pm at The Queer Emporium as they lead you on a photo walk around the heart of Cardiff. The ramble will have a focus around the theme of Identity, inviting you to look at this city from new perspectives.
Bring your cameras and creativity!
Places are free but must be booked through Eventbrite here. There are 12 places available. Please wear sensible footwear and remember your sunscreen if it’s hot. If you have a good camera, great! But if you only have your phone’s camera that will be just fine.
You must be 16+
Meet at The Queer Emporium, 2 - 4 Royal Arcade, St Mary’s Street, Cardiff CF10 1AE
On the evening of Thursday 28th July, we will be holding a panel discussion exploring the themes of the domestic space in photography and art. Joining us will be artists Dafydd Williams, Rosy Martin and John Paul Evans on the panel. Each of these artists explores similar themes in their own work through various approaches.
We would love you to join us for an evening of stimulating conversation between 6 and 8pm in our beautiful gallery space in Cathays.
What is lost… what has been is a solo exhibition of photographic works by Welsh artist John Paul Evans, taking place at Ffotogallery from 17 June – 3 September 2022.
Exhibited together for the first time, this collection of John Paul Evans’ series of works pose questions about photography’s relationship with memory, love, loss and representation.
Working with his partner Peter, the artist uses performative portraiture, still life and collage to reimagine domestic and public spaces. From carefully constructed, detailed images to mindful documentations of cloudscapes, the work is both collectively playful and poignantly tender. John Paul Evans’s practice serves as a reminder of the visible traditions and often invisible social structures which exclude groups subjected to oppression, including but not exclusive to the LGBTQIA+ community.
Oasis Cardiff and Ffotogallery invite you to "Restore", a photography exhibition showcasing upcoming talent in Wales.
We have created a body of work for an exhibition that we plan to tour around Wales in the coming months. This has been created by Ffotogallery and visual artists from around the globe, and the first viewing will be held during Refugee Week.
The work is made by photographers who have lived experience of the Asylum Process, so inexplicably the work explores these themes, as well as ideas of new beginnings, new homes and new lives.
The exhibition will likely expand over time, alluding to more themes and telling different stories, as this is an ongoing body of work.
We are delighted to be continuing our partnership with Oasis as part of our community engagement programme.
Restore will be available to view from Tuesday 21st June until Friday 24th June 10am - 4pm (8pm on Friday) and takes place at Oasis Cardiff, 69b Splott Rd, Splott, Cardiff CF24 2BW
Are you interested in finding out more about Chennai Photo Biennale & Ffotogallery's open call, Communities of Choice, made possible by the British Council?
Join us for an informal Q&A session via zoom on Friday 17th June, 12.30pm GMT or 5pm IST.
This project is part of the British Council's newly announced India/UK Together Season of Culture, which celebrates the long-standing relationship between the two.
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At this point in time, we are beginning to rethink our notions of community, collective responsibility and care. As dispiriting as current world events may seem, humanity has made tremendous progress towards tolerance, inclusion, and equality. Living in a period of dramatic social and political change, some of us feel more emboldened to confront a few existential questions - Do we belong to one community, or to many? Do we have the privilege to choose our communities or must we follow the choices made for us?
We extend an invitation to multidisciplinary artists working with lens based mediums, photography and film to further enquire into the notion of ‘Communities of Choice’.
This open call is for artists and collectives who use their art to create and develop bodies of work that express their views and opinions about belonging and inclusions. We welcome submissions on (but not limited to) the following themes:
gender
disability
politics
constructs of race/caste
identity
sustainable communities
class
This opportunity is open to all and we particularly encourage applications from underrepresented communities.
We’ve partnered up with Cardiff MADE to host their first big live music event since the pandemic! MADE UP festival brings three days of music, poetry and spectacular visuals, in celebration of homegrown electro, glam rock, folk and jazz. The event will also be showcasing poetry and filmmaking through spoken word sets, workshops and visual reels, along with a bespoke set by Cardiff based VJ Chameleonic.
For more information about the line-up and to book your earlybird and weekend tickets online visit the link below, or you can purchase tickets in the Cardiff MADE shop on Lochaber St, Cathays.
Ffotogallery is delighted to present What is lost…what has been, a solo exhibition of photographic works by Welsh artist John Paul Evans, taking place from 17 June – 3 September 2022.
The exhibition explores the autoethnographic process of weaving one’s personal history into a visual dialogue, analysing ideas of belonging/otherness, mourning and melancholia in relation to the photographic family album.
John Paul Evans writes about his work:
“What is lost…what has been is a visual soliloquy to ‘absent friends’, people I considered my family. The works are also a coda to my installation in the sweet bye & bye which was a photographic cathexis in response to the death of my closest friend in Dec 2017. […] The concept of memorialisation is particularly pertinent to photography. We try to capture our loved ones through the photographic moment, but the attempt to freeze/capture/isolate time only testifies to the fact that this moment has passed, ‘this has been’.”
Ffotogallery’s Director Siân Addicott comments:
“I am delighted to have the opportunity to showcase John Paul’s wonderful work as the first exhibition in my new role as Director. Following its successful run at the Mission Gallery in Swansea, What is lost… what has been will be expanded at Ffotogallery to include some additional works which will be on display for the first time in Cardiff. Coinciding with the exhibition will be a programme of events and collaborations with local LGBTQ+ artists, groups and communities.”
Mental Health Awareness Week is an annual event which provides an opportunity for the whole of the UK to focus on achieving good mental health.
In 2022, Mental Health Awareness Week takes place 9-15 May on the topic of ‘Loneliness’. Loneliness is affecting more and more of us in the UK and has had a huge impact on our physical and mental health during the pandemic. Our connection to other people and our community is fundamental to protecting our mental health and we need to find better ways of tackling the epidemic of loneliness. We can all play a part in this and at Ffotogallery we are inviting you to join us for four days of activities and talks with a focus on mental wellbeing and loneliness.
Each evening between Wednesday 11th - Friday 13th, we will be holding artists’ talks. Our photographers will share and discuss work which all has a focus on mental health and well being. We will look in depth at how they use their imagery to depict mental health struggles, the issues and influencing factors which can affect our health and well being and to share their own stories.
Booking for our artists’ talks is advisable. Here is a line up of the week’s events:
Wednesday 11th May, 6-8pm - In Conversation with Suzie Larke, plus screening of the short film Unseen
Thursday 12th May, 6-8pm - In Conversation with Jo Haycock and family As we will have vulnerable guests with us, we kindly ask visitors to wear a mask where possible during this event.
Friday 13th May, 6-8pm - In Conversation with Iko-Ojo Mercy Haruna and Nelly Ating, hosted by Cynthia Sitei (Online event)
On Saturday 14th May we will be holding a whole day of activities with a focus on improving our well being and to tackle loneliness. We will have arts & crafts, relaxing and fun activities throughout the afternoon. More details to follow.
Join us for an afternoon of special events to mark the closing day of our current exhibition by Edgar Martins, What Photography and Incarceration Have In Common With an Empty Vase, on Saturday 9th April from 1pm.
We will be showing Martins’ film The Life and Death of Schrödinger’s Cat to accompany the exhibition. The film element of this project deploys a succession of photographs, strongly reminiscent of scientific illustration and documentation, and the remarkable 1977 photobook by Larry Sultan and Mike Mandel, Evidence.
The difference with Evidence is we do not encounter just pictures. Martins’ photographs are sequenced to accompany an elaborate story based on a collaboration with the renowned Portuguese physicist and CERN scientist João Seixas of a prison that is built to create the maximum absence of its inmates from society.
Martins will also be joining us in person to lead a “Walk & Talk” tour of the entire exhibition at 2pm and again at 4pm to give us an insight into his thinking as well as answering any questions.
Please note, the film will be shown in our library space and as such places are limited. Booking for this event is required, and tickets are available here.
We are holding an evening of short films from Welsh artists and producers on our large screen in our wonderful gallery on Friday 11th March, 6-9pm. Our line-up includes documentaries, archive footage, fiction, artists’ films of their work and about their lives. It’s set to be a fabulous evening of film showcasing some of the wonderful creatives found here in Wales. Ffotogallery would love for you to join us for the evening and don’t worry, we’ll supply the popcorn!
6.15pm rise Only beGun - Onismo Muhlanga
6.30pm School Bus Melancholia - Stephen George Jones
6.45pm What Comes Next? - John Crerar
7.10pm The Betrayal Cycle - João Saramago
7.15pm Tripping Through Newport’s Underbelly - Marega Palser
7.25pm The Coat Of Radical Kindness - Naz Syed
7.30pm My Brief Eternity - Claire Sturgess
7.45pm Ancestor Mewn Golau - Onismo Muhlanga
7.50pm Staying/Aros Mae - Zillah Bowes
8.15pm Quilt of Friendship - Lost Connections
8.20pm Unseen - Ian Smith / Auntie Margaret
8.40pm Resurrection - Onismo Muhlanga, Pierre Gashagaza & Jordan Wilson-Alexander
My Brief Eternity - Claire Sturgess
My Brief Eternity documents the making of the last artistic work of Osi Rhys Osmond, which he chose to create for Maggie's cancer charity.
The film explores Osi’s reflections on the power of art – its role and significance in his life, and its value in coping and living with cancer. It provides an intimate portrayal of the artist’s mindset, thoughts and feelings as he explores art as a prism for capturing life, and the creative process as a metaphor for living and dying.
The Betrayal Cycle - João Saramago
A scar is a living proof of an arduous event but also the remembrance of what was and what we can endure.
The Betrayal Cycle is a brand new series of interventions of fixing and repairing the damaged landscape documented to reveal mankind’s acts of betrayal and the absurdity of human existence, split into a structured narrative to showcase environmental issues as an allusive reference to personal and intimate relationships.
What Comes Next - John Crerar
What Comes Next? is a cinematic montage compiled entirely from amateur and low budget documentary footage shot in Wales during the post-war years leading up to and including the Festival of Britain celebrations in 1951.This theatre of the everyday touches on locations and lives that, though incidental in themselves, were symbolic of a broad sweep of change that ultimately transformed the face of Wales and ushered in a period of social reform, reconstruction and modernisation against a backdrop of economic austerity. Originally inspired by the montage documentaries of the 1920’s, the film seeks to present an insight into the challenges faced by Welsh working class communities that battled to build a better future while also reflecting on the legacy of Britain's colonial past that to this day continues to cast the deepest of shadows.
Staying/Aros Mae - Zillah Bowes
Staying / Aros Mae is a short fiction film by Zillah Bowes fresh from its successful run on the international film festival circuit, including wins at Encounters and Premiers Plans Angers. Set in Cardiff and Mid Wales, it stars actress and 9Bach singer Lisa Jên Brown and features members of a hill farming community in Radnorshire, whose way of life is changing due to climate crisis, Brexit and the UK economy. The same community of people are featured in Bowes’ work Green Dark, exhibited at Ffotogallery last year.
Ruth, a newly divorced gallery manager selling her city home, sees a video of a sheepdog, Mick, for sale. She visits farmer Huw and his wife Megan in the remote hills.
Unseen - Ian Smith/Auntie Margaret Films
Whilst photographing those struggling with their mental health, renowned photographer Suzie Larke has an emotionally difficult year witnessing her father’s slow death. Will he still be alive for her exhibition and what will pull her through?
The Coat Of Radical Kindness - Naz Syed
The coat of radical kindness reflects creativity and connections made over lockdown. The coat is made out of over 300 pom poms and is a colourful, tactile manifestation of creative dreams. Featuring voices of the community who shared their stories and art. Each pom pom symbolises a memory and small acts of kindness. Crafting is a form of escapism and takes me back to my childhood memories. Inspired by the rainbows in my street to symbolise hope. The energy of the coat passing on a warm cwtch, full of magic and joy!
Part of Our Creative Space, capturing creativity in the Cardiff Region, Creative Cardiff, Arts Council of Wales. Filmed by Creative Fez
Ancestors Mewn Golau - Onismo Muhlanga
Our very own home has been laid through the foundation of our ancestry. The experiences we face, the moments we share, the sun in the life we endure, all is in connection to the light for the path paved for us. Ancestors Mewn Golau is a beautiful visual combining recorded video content with archival footage and found moving image, Onismo's work combines music and movement to take viewers on a journey of spirit, heritage and embodied memories.
rise Only beGUN - Onismo Muhlanga
This piece is full visibility of the immaculate strength, leadership, ambition, resilience and virtuoso of Andrew throughout markers of his life journey at this current stage. Heading a role as a Youth Justice Minister stemming from his involvement together with Andrew’s interpretation of the 2020 Activism around the 2020 spark as a focus point in connection with each chapter of Andrews life in exhibition that has played a part in the building of his characteristics.
Resurrection - Onismo Muhlanga, Pierre Gashagaza & Jordan Wilson-Alexander
'Resurrection' is a passion project by Pierre Gashagaza, that entails the struggles he had with identity and purpose through a spoken word visual. The film was a direct response to Pierre’s creative output being hindered by acquiring a job during the summer solely for monetary values. As we experience this journey of identity discovery and question, we are able to really access how we have to shift our spirit towards what we love to flourish.
Lost- ‘unable to find one’s way or not knowing one’s whereabouts’. There was once a moment in time when this feeling was no stranger to me, a strong sense of familiarity you could call it. Yet, despite an array of anguish plaguing my body, what truly left me in a stagnant position was being unable to identify the source of my problems. All signs of life were being stripped away from my identity and Before I knew it I was no longer myself. Instead, a lifeless vessel who meandered through life with no destination in sight. Grey. That’s all I could envision. All I could feel. All that was presented to me during this confusing plight. Or so I thought. The resolve was present the entire time. In fact all I needed was time, time to reflect on where my energy was being displaced and why. For too long external forces dictated my course of action whilst I watched idly by with no resistance. This way of living had run its course, for now was the time to alleviate my spirit from the shackles that burdened by my body and transition onto the path that resonated with my mind, being and soul. It was my time to be RESURRECTED!!!!!!!
Coffee and Laughs Quilt - Lost Connections
A community quilt was created in response and collaboration with the Lost Connections project, fusing art, textiles and poetry. To symbolise the hands of friendship and the experiences, emotions and connections over this time in lockdown.
Each piece of hand textile art was created at home through doorstep deliveries, workshops with Naz and created by amazing women in the group and then brought together hand stitched by Marilyn to create a memory marking this time with poetry stitched in created by Sue Lewis.
‘This was a wonderful way to share the story of Coffee and Laughs and how we connect together, women from different faiths and cultures, what we can learn from each other. It keeps us learning, it keeps us young, it gives us a sense of achievement. This project enabled us to express ourselves, our emotions and feelings, of how lockdown affected us all.’
What Photography & Incarceration have in Common with an Empty Vase is a multifaceted body of work developed from a collaboration with Grain Projects and HM Prison Birmingham (the largest, category B prison in the Midlands, UK), its inmates, their families as well as a myriad of other local organisations and individuals.
Using the social context of incarceration as a starting point, Martins explores the philosophical concept of absence, and addresses a broader consideration of the status of the photograph when questions of visibility, ethics, aesthetics and documentation intersect.
By productively articulating image and text, new and historical photography, evidence and fiction, Martins’ work proposes to scrutinise how one deals with the absence of a loved one, brought on by enforced separation. From an ontological perspective it seeks answers to the following questions: how does one represent a subject that eludes visualization, that is absent or hidden from view? How can documentary photography, in an era of fake news, best acknowledge the imaginative and fictional dimension of our relation to photographs?
By giving a voice to inmates and their families and addressing prison as a set of social relations rather than a mere physical space, Martins’ work proposes to rethink and counter the sort of imagery normally associated with incarceration.
The project thus wilfully circumvents images whose sole purpose, Martins argues, is to confirm the already held opinions within dominant ideology about crime & punishment: violence, drugs, criminality, race – an approach that only serves to reinforce the act of photographing and photography itself as apotropaic devices.
This project marks a significant transition in Martins’ creative trajectory, signalling a growing inclination towards a broader, more hybrid and interdisciplinary perspective of images.
Over 2500 years ago the Philosopher Mo-tzu observed sunlight travelling through a small hole and deduced that light travelled in the same way as an arrow being fired.
In just over an hour, ‘Aristotle’s Hole’ covers: the Science, 500 million year history and the immense variety of contemporary approaches to pinhole photography and camera obscura experimentation.
Justin will then show some of his own work, from the past 30 years which varies in duration from using fraction of a second to 12 months and using a variety of cameras from the Smileycam (which can fit in his mouth) to a wheelie bin (that doesn’t!). He will also show some of his obscura creations which somehow enables him to get into festivals for nothing!
The lively talk sometimes features several unnerving approaches on capturing images entitled ‘being a golf ball’ and a ‘power drill portrait’ and demonstrations on how to make various pinhole cameras and obscuras. He will also talk about community photography and the Real Photography Company including some of the projects they have been involved with over the past 5 years.
Unfortunately due to adverse weather we have had to cancel tonight's screening of Poly Styrene. We hope to go ahead with events on Saturday, and you can see the revised schedule on this post.
Saturday 19 February
12.00pm - Doors open
12.15pm - In conversation with Paul Sng and Zara Mader
1.15pm - Film screening - Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché
Ffotogallery are proud to present a weekend packed full of events all based around themes from our current exhibition Invisible Britain: This Separated Isle, curated by Paul Sng. These events mark the closing weekend and will be the last chance to visit the exhibition which explores concepts of ‘Britishness’, featuring a diverse range of fascinating photographic portraits of people from across the UK and their accompanying narrative stories. Make sure you get the dates in your diary!
Poly Styrene was the first woman of colour in the UK to front a successful rock band. She introduced the world to a new sound of rebellion, using her unconventional voice to sing about identity, consumerism, postmodernism, and everything she saw unfolding in late 1970s Britain, with a rare prescience. As the frontwoman of X-Ray Spex, the Anglo-Somali punk musician was also a key inspiration for the riot grrrl and Afropunk movements.
Paul Sng is a biracial British Chinese filmmaker whose work focuses on people who challenge the status quo.
Zara Mader is a Cardiff based photographer whose work includes a series of portraits of women inspired by the music of punk icon Poly Styrene.
Our panel discussion will be looking at some of the issues featured in the book, such as ‘Britishness’ and ‘separation’, and we are looking forward to exploring these with lively and informative discourse. We are privileged to be joined on the day by:
Paul Sng, curator of the exhibition and editor of the book
Robert Law, featured photographer
Inès Elsa Dalal, featured photographer
Mymuna Soleman, activist and founder of The Privilege Café.
The discussion will be moderated by Nicola Heywood-Thomas (BBC and Arts Journalist).
We will be running a FREE art workshop for children aged up to 12 on Saturday 29th January from 12pm - 4pm at our gallery in the Old Sunday School, Fanny Street, Cathays.
Join us to make your own mixed media self portrait showing us who YOU are!
Even as COVID-19 made a seismic impact across the world, the cracks exposed by Brexit, Black Lives Matter and rising levels of race hate crimes revealed bitter divisions in British society. In the aftermath of the pandemic, and with questions over the breakup of the United Kingdom refusing to dissipate, how do people across Britain choose to navigate the tensions in this divided land?
This Separated Isle explores how concepts of ‘Britishness’ reveal an inclusive range of opinions and understandings about our national character. Based on the Invisible Britain: This Separated Isle book, featuring a diverse range of fascinating photographic portraits of people from across the UK and their accompanying narrative stories, this landmark exhibition examines the relationship between identity and nationhood, revealing not only what divides us, but also the ties that bind us together as a nation.
The project curator is Paul Sng, and this UK premiere of the exhibition is produced and presented by Ffotogallery.
The participating photographers are:
Alecsandra Dragoi Alicia Bruce Amara Eno Andy Aitchison Arpita Shah Chris Leslie Christine Lalla Ciara Faraz Pourreza-Jorshari Fiona Yaron-Field Gina Lundy Ilisa Stack Inès Elsa Dalal Jim Mortram Jenny Lewis Joanne Coates Kat Dlugosz Kate Nolan Kirsty Mackay Kris Askey Lisa Wormsley Maisie Marshall Marc Davenant Margaret Mitchell Marie Smith Mario W. Ihieme Mark Parham Nicola Muirhead Rhys Baker Robert Law Roland Ramanan Sally Low Dr Yan Wang Preston
…and we’d love you to join us for our Christmas Family Fun Day and Photography Fair on Saturday 11th December!
We’ll have stalls from 12-3pm and lots of other Christmassy things all through the afternoon from 12-5pm, with arts and crafts workshops and activities as well as Carol Singing from our neighbours at Cathays Methodist Church.
Are you a small business owner in or around Cathays in Cardiff? If that’s you then we are very happy to invite you to join us for a Christmas Get Together in our beautiful gallery space at Ffotogallery.
We’ll supply the mince pies and mulled wine if you come along and help to grow our network of support for local small businesses. All free and everyone is welcome so do come and enjoy a festive evening with our team.
We would normally have our Tea & Cake Social Morning at our gallery in Fanny Street on the first Tuesday of each month but for November we have decided to wait and instead hold a Christmas Event with Mince Pies instead of cake, on Tuesday 7th December! It will be at our usual time of 11-1pm and will also provide a chance to see our wonderful exhibition More Than A Number which is currently on show until the end of the year. We’d love you to join us for this festive event so pop it in your diary and bring your friends!
“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.
Find out more about the artists’ backgrounds and view their projects in an online gallery on ffotoview.org
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.
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.
In a recent blog post, director David Drake announced that the fifth edition of Diffusion: Wales International Festival of Photography will be going ahead this autumn! We are delighted to be able to host a variety of exhibitions in Cardiff, Newport and South Wales 1st – 31st October.
Turning Point: Diffusion 2021 looks towards a post-pandemic future by providing a platform for new artistic voices and culturally diverse experiences, and a new model of collaboration that delivers a month of photography events in Wales and international reach and impact. Combining online and physical co-creation and presentation of work, Turning Point: Diffusion 2021 celebrates and foregrounds the richness and diversity of the nation’s geography, culture and society, at a time of both great uncertainty and new opportunity.
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.
Artist Zillah Bowes explains: "Moonlight allows me to slow down and experience the fragile beat of plant life and the landscape that contains it. Green Dark is an attempt to translate my experiences in and around the Elan Estate near Rhayader, Mid Wales into images. I wish for these photos to be a voice for plant life and amplify its beat since it cannot do so itself, in that it is un-asking. I am guided by the sacred diversity of animal life which is sustained by plant life and in danger of being lost.
"The same landscape contains and sustains a unique and historic community of people, whose open hill farming practices, from tenanted farms, root them through their ancestors with continued belonging. Green Dark offers a space - neither darkness or light - to examine plant and human life, and the transition between them, in the discomfort of an uncertain climate future."
We warmly invite you to join us in person or online Thursday 15th July from 7pm for a premiere screening of Unseen, plus a panel discussion about Suzie Larke's exhibition and issues that arise from the project.
Joining Suzie on the panel will be psychologist Annie Beyer and Jo Verrent, senior producer at Unlimited, as well as an opportunity to contribute to a discussion with Unseen director Ian Smith.
Unlimited is an arts commissioning programme that aims to embed work by disabled artists within the UK and international cultural sectors, reach new audiences and shift perceptions of disabled people. They offer funding for research and development, to make small and large-scale projects happen in the UK and around the world, and have awards for emerging artists who are new to art, early-career or haven’t had reached large audiences yet. They also fund full commissions and commissions created through international collaborations.
Auntie Margaret are creative film, TV and video content producers, imaging incredible content and led by Ian Smith. He worked at the BBC for over 10 years where he produced a variety of formats, films and documentaries including Wales and Hollywood, How The Co-op Started, Homelessness: On the Edge, Weird Wales & The One Show.
Doors for the physical event will be at 7pm, with the event starting at 7:30pm. Limited tickets are available, so book soon!
Or log in online via Zoom at 7:30pm on the 15th, where we will live stream the whole event. You can join us by clicking here.
If you have any access requirements, please email [email protected] prior to the event, and we will do our best to provide support.
Ffotogallery’s touring exhibition Land/Sea by Mike Perry is due to open at Oriel y Parc in St David's, Pembrokeshire from 10 July.
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 National Museum Wales and Mike Perry, adapted from Ffotogallery Touring exhibition Land/Sea originated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery and Ben Borthwick.
“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 a part of Ffotogallery’s Photography and Africa series, which looks to explore 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 11 photographers from Africa. 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”.
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 Alaoui teleport the audience into their zones of contact, and explore the idea of remaking and reimagining our identities. 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. The launch of the More Than a Number online exhibition and first symposium is scheduled for the 14th
of July 2021.
MORE THAN A NUMBER: SYMPOSIUM #1 – 14th July 2021
The first More Than a Number symposium will feature curators from throughout Africa as its guest-speakers, who will discuss issues around the exposure and representation of local photographers and visual artists in Africa. The questions addressed will include:
Is there enough critical discourse to situate and appraise the work being produced by photographers from Africa?
Is there such a thing as an African visual aesthetic?
What are some of the experiences and challenges met when curating an exhibition/festival in Africa – (I invite you to look critically and reflect on your journey when you started).
How can we ensure that photographers in Africa have the same opportunities as other practitioners, and are treated fairly and respectfully as international photographers?
What are some of the policies put in place to protect and care for visual artists working in Africa?
How do you think transparency amongst artists and institutions/organisations can be achieved?
(This question is for the exhibiting artists:) What steps, methods or measures do you take (if any) in your work to ensure that your work represents a “realistic” or “accurate” or “truthful” image of Africa?
How can we ensure that audiences gain genuine insight, understanding and meaning from photographs, especially those coming from Africa?
Later in the summer of 2021, three artist workshops will be held online: centred around the three themes explored earlier - Representing Fearlessness, Zones of Contact and Radical Sociality - each artist will engage in a conversation with the audience about their work. And finally, to coincide with the Cardiff-based Diffusion Festival 2021 (October 2021), a physical exhibition and second symposium will be presented to further explore many of the conversations around More Than a Number and Photography and Africa.
Unseen uses conceptual photography to depict the experiences of struggle of a group of participants. Artist Suzie Larke uses constructed imagery, digitally stitching photographs together in such a way that they present as a single, untampered image. By using ‘magical realism’ to transform photographs that take the everyday and skew it, she creates images that interpret the subjective experience of struggles with mental well-being.
This project aims to help people express their experiences through conceptual photography. It aims to increase awareness and conversation about mental well-being and unite us in the knowledge that everyone goes through – and can overcome – struggle.
Join us at Ffotogallery in the Old Sunday School, Fanny St, on Saturday 3rd July for a day of FREE wellbeing activities for all ages, 12 -5pm!
Running on the day we will have:
11:30 Drag Queen Story Hour UK (ticketed)
12:30 Drag Queen Story Hour UK (ticketed)
1:30 - 3:30 Tai Chi taster sessions with Debbie Lawrence
3:30 - 4:30 Hula hooping with Ellie Coptor Pilott
Throughout the day you will also have the chance to capture and edit your own photos with our featured artist Suzie Larke, as well as the opportunity to create your own colourful collages.
Entry and activities are absolutely free, so pop in and join us, we’d love to see you!
(Drag Queen Story Hour UK is suitable for children 0-12, and adults of course! Places for this must be pre booked to avoid disappointment. All other activities will be on a drop in basis.)
On Thursday 29 April at 2pm, we warmly invite you to join us for the next in our series of online discussions, Photography and Wellbeing. It is widely recognised that access to and participation in the arts can dramatically improve a person’s physical and mental wellbeing, even more so in the last year where many individuals have turned to creative activities as a way of coping throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mary Farmilant will be joining us on the day to present her series ‘See You on the Other Side’, followed by Suzie Larke in discussion with counselling psychologist Dr Annie Beyer, about her latest project ‘Unseen’. You will also hear about the Southbank London’s Art by Post project which brings free poetry and visual art activities to the people most isolated by the current social distancing measures.
Mary Farmilant is a Chicago-based visual artist working in photography, video and sound and received her nursing degree before turning to photography. ‘See You on the Other Side’ deals with the complex emotional and verbal experience after being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.
Suzie Larke is a visual artist and photographer based in Cardiff, UK. Her personal work uses conceptual photography to explore themes of identity, emotion, and the human condition. In Unseen, she uses a collaborative approach to photography to depict the experiences of various individuals from all walks of life struggling with mental wellbeing.
Please note that this event will be hosted via Zoom. If you have any access requirements, please email [email protected] prior to the event, and we will do our best to provide support.
Following the success of our Photography and Language online event last Autumn, we’re curating a new series of ‘Photography and…’ online events, inviting artists and professionals worldwide to join in discussions about photography’s role in the world today.
We’re kicking off the series with Photography and A Woman’s Work. Joining us will be artists, curators and partners who participated in the two-year Creative Europe project which sought to uncover new insights through photography into the changing landscape of gender and work, stimulating debate about contemporary issues facing Europe.
Presentations by Maternal Fantasies artist collective (Germany), Miriam O'Connor (Ireland) on women in farming, Tonje Bøe Birkeland (Norway) on her project The Characters, Kaunas Photo Gallery (Lithuania) on post-Soviet photography and women's work, Gallery of Photography (Ireland) and Ffotogallery (Wales) on the changing landscape of women's work in Europe, and the artist/curator duo Whack 'n' Bite (Finland). Also the launch of the A Woman's Work legacy publication and an opportunity to discuss the issues arising from this Creative Europe 2018 - 21 project.
Hot from the press, the A Woman’s Work legacy publication is available to buy here.
Please note that this event will be hosted via Zoom. If you have any access requirements, please email [email protected] prior to the event, and we will do our best to provide support.
Abby Poulson, Antonia Osuji, Cynthia MaiWa Sitei, Ethan Beswick, Jack Osborne, Jo Haycock, John Manley, Kaz Alexander, Lucy Purrington, Matthew Eynon, Mohamed Hassan, Robert Law.
We are delighted to announce that Ffotogallery will re-open its doors to the public on Wednesday 19 May 2021 so visitors can enjoy Many Voices, One Nation 2, an exhibition which presents a more optimistic view of Wales' future. The exhibition features the work of twelve talented photographers working in Wales today. It captures the richness and diversity of the nation’s geography, culture and society, at a time of great uncertainty and upheaval.
During Lockdown, Ffotogallery invited photography professionals from around Wales to nominate photographers, students and artists whose work offers insights into contemporary life and represents the breadth of Welsh talent that deserves wider exposure. Twelve artists were selected from across Wales, reflecting a wide range of subjects and different approaches to photography. David Drake, Ffotogallery’s Director explains:
“Through the exhibition and in Ffotogallery’s future work, we want to make sure that we value the role people from all parts of our society play in creating a vibrant Wales. We know that the arts in Wales will be stronger, more exciting and relevant to more people if we embrace diversity. We actively encourage public participation and audience engagement with the issues arising from the exhibition”.
The exhibition has been made possible through the support from the Arts Council of Wales’ Cultural Recovery Fund, which has also enabled Ffotogallery to make its gallery Covid-safe and welcoming for visitors.
The Many Voices, One Nation programme began life as a touring exhibition developed as a collaboration between Ffotogallery and the Senedd/Welsh Parliament, which marked 20 years of devolution in Wales.
The gallery is fully COVID compliant. Face masks should be worn at all times within the building unless the wearer is exempt, and hand sanitiser is available throughout. We encourage visitors to download the NHS COVID-19 App and scan the QR code as you enter the gallery.
If you have any queries about visiting, then please contact us on [email protected]or 029 2034 1667.
Join us for this online discussion marking the launch of a new Visual Correspondence between Marcelo Brodsky and Michal Iwanowski.
The two artists discuss their respective practices and how they approached the collaboration during lockdown. Alina Kisina, an artist, educator and linguist by training, will explore issues of visual literacy and creative expression, and how the online dimension of her global project Children of Vision empowers young people to share their unique vision of the world.
This event will be taking place online via Zoom – meeting details and further technical information will be provided in your booking confirmation.
This event is one of a series of conversations with artists and audiences around photography’s role in articulating culture and identity. The event links in with the Imagining the Nation State Open Call as part of our India-Wales collaborations.
There is just over a month left to submit your proposal for our latest opportunity in partnership with Chennai Photo Biennale Foundation, ‘Imagining the Nation State’ – there are four grants available, two for artists in Wales, and two for artists in India. Find out more and apply here.
Ffotogallery’s touring exhibition Land/Sea by Mike Perry is due to open at Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton, Devon from 20 May.
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 and Ruth Gooding, Thelma Hulbert Gallery, adapted from Ffotogallery Touring exhibition Land/Sea originated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery and Ben Borthwick.
We are delighted to invite you to the final exhibition launch of The Place I Call Home’s UK tour, from 6pm on Wednesday 11 March at Copeland Gallery, London. Book your free place here
You’ll have the opportunity to meet some of the artists who have worked on the project, as well as the curator David Drake. The celebration marks the end of this immense project working with the British Council on the UK-Gulf initiative.
The Place I Call Home is an exhibition curated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery, the national photography agency for Wales. It explores the idea of home related to the experiences of people living in the Gulf and the UK at a time of rapid change and social mobility. It forms part of the British Council’s Gulf Culture and Sport programme – a three year programme funded by the Foreign Office
Featured artists: Ammar Al Attar, Ben Soedira, Sara Al Obaidly, Eman Ali, Gillian Robertson, Mohammed Al-Kouh, Hassan Meer, Hussain Almosawi & Mariam Alarab, Richard Allenby-Pratt, Mashael Al Hejazi, Abi Green & Sebastian Betancur-Montoya, Josh Adam Jones, Moath Alofi and Zahed Sultan.
The exhibition continues until 21 March 2020, open Wednesday - Saturday, 11am - 4pm.
A society expects us all to work and pay taxes. It is crucial for a society’s functioning that everybody contributes. Working is respected – though respect for professions and positions form various hierarchies. Many societies encourage us to have children – and to create the next contributing generation to secure a nation’s future development, taxes and services.
Happy Families, a traditional British card game since the mid-1800’s, portrays families with four happy members. Mother and father, Mrs and Mr Occupation, sharing the same profession and the two children, a girl and a boy, following in their footsteps. Over 150 years ago, was this a revolutionary idea of a working family, a prophetic declaration of a happy, functional family, or simply a harmless absurdity no one paid much attention to? Woman and man, both independent workers, working as engineers, photographers, bakers, working for their family and for their livelihood in laboratories and on fishing ships. If Happy Families is the perfectly balanced unit, we can see the ideal society in a nutshell, or more precise, in a pack of cards. Everyone is doing what they enjoy and can do their best.
Gender coded territories are no illusion. The gulf between the territories, at both work and home, is knit together with myriad patterns. It is a privilege to be able to choose one’s profession and workplace. To be able to choose to take parental leave and stay home with the children. To earn enough to live on. These privileges go beyond questions of gender equality – these are the choices that some people make, whichever gender.
As structural changes shake the foundations of European work environments, traditional hard work will disappear and the demand for soft workers will increase. There is no longer any need for the gender divide in an agricultural society if there ever was one. Hierarchies also crumble. Companies recognise the intrinsic value of being a well-respected workplace, realisable through communication and trust between management and employees. Confidence does not ask for gender. In a productive workplace, everyone can be themselves and influence the meaning of work. Like in our homes, a Happy Family gets everyday tasks collectively done.
The Place I Call Home reaches Summerhall in Edinburgh this February as part of a touring schedule that spans ten venues in seven countries. The exhibition, curated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery Wales, features work by 15 photographers and artists from the Arab world and UK exploring the theme of ‘home’ through stories of culture and heritage which challenge stereotypes and shed light on differences and commonalities. The exhibition has a particular focus on the lives, experiences and opportunities for young people in a dynamic and fast changing world where people are more mobile and globally connected than ever before.
Scottish photographer Gillian Robertson gained her Higher Diploma in Photography at Edinburgh Napier University, before establishing a thriving photography business. Four years ago, she moved to Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates with her husband and daughter. Robertson’s project for The Place I Call Home is titled ‘Melting Boundaries’ and explores interculturalism and relationships formed between British and Emirati cultures within the locality which she has made her home.
British-Indonesian artist Ben Soedira was brought up in Dubai, and at eighteen moved to Scotland to study photography at the Glasgow School of Art. He continues to live in Glasgow now. Soedira’s project ‘Foreign Sands’ revolves around the ideas of belonging and foreignness, questioning what makes us feel at home when we are uprooted from a place that is familiar. He captures details of the urban landscape to examine how people navigate the modern city of Dubai and have influenced its development.
The exhibition also features film, photography and artist bookworks by Zahed Sultan (Kuwait/UK), Hassan Meer (Oman), Eman Ali (Oman/UK), Sara Al Obaidly (UK/Qatar), Mashael Al Hejazi (Qatar), Moath Alofi (Saudi Arabia), Mohammed Al-Kouh (Kuwait), Hussain Almosawi & Mariam Alarab (Bahrain), Ammar Al-Attar (United Arab Emirates), Abi Green (Qatar/UK), Sebastian Betancur-Montoya (Qatar/Colombia), Josh Adam Jones (UK/Oman) and Richard Allenby-Pratt (UK/UAE).
Coal is at the heart of the modern world. It has created unique, vibrant communities, transformed landscapes and was for several centuries the world’s most important commodity, such that it became known as King Coal.
Today coal still produces a great deal of the world’s energy, but is now seen as the major culprit in global warming, and phasing it out is at the heart of action to save the planet.
Join us on Saturday 1st February
for a day of talks, screenings, reminiscences and discussion that illuminate the nature of the world created by coal and look forward to the prospect of a post-carbon world.
The day is inspired by Derrick Price’s
book, Coal Cultures: Picturing Mining Landscapes and Communities, and in a short talk he will introduce some of the key themes of the day. We will also show Jeremy Deller’s 2001 re-enactment of The Battle of Orgreave made 17 years after it took place and had become an iconic moment in the miners’ strike.
There will be a chance to see a new selection of images from the Valleys Archive and other sources.
David Severn will introduce us to his work on miners of Afro Caribbean origin - a series of portraits of black British miners in Nottingham.
Also on show will be Richard Jones’s 3D installation, Coal Face, a study of the Welsh coal industry depicted in the faces of those who worked in it.
Gina Glover will discuss her project, My Anthropocene. The meaning of this concept, she notes, is a world increasingly shaped by human intervention. Her photography examines the way in which economic growth, use of fossil energy and new technologies has led to exceeding the boundaries of natural ecological sustainability, including the climate, on which we humans, as well as other species, utterly depend. She asks: how can we communicate this frightening prospect visually in a way which allows the prospect of change?
Also on show will be Pen Tennyson’s Ealing Film made in 1940, The Proud Valley. It was filmed in the South Wales coalfield and starred Paul Robeson as an African American who finds work as a miner.
This is a full, exciting programme, and an opportunity to look at exhibitions of work and discuss the issues surrounding coal and coal cultures.
Women’s role in industry and technology-based work in post-war Europe is a hitherto untold story, and audiovisual archives have tended to focus on male-orientated ‘heavy industries’ such as coal, iron and steel, or large scale engineering sectors such as shipbuilding, construction, aerospace and car manufacturing. Yet women continue to play a key role in many manufacturing and service industries – for example, textiles, electronics, food and drinks, plastics and pharmaceuticals – a reality which is neither acknowledged nor strongly represented in European cultural archives.
A Woman’s Work is a project that uses photography and digital media to address that deficit through artistic collaboration and exchange across borders, and the co-production of exhibitions, publications and online resources that challenge the dominant view of gender and industry in Europe. The project explores the shifting relationship between home and the workplace, and growth sectors such as the finance industry, media and telecommunications, where women’s work is being re-defined through technological developments and post-globalism.
A Women’s Work is a 24 month collaborative programme, funded by Creative Europe, in which cultural partners in the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Ireland, France, Finland and Germany will work together in pursuit of the following objectives:
to enable artists and cultural professionals from across Europe to cooperate around the making and presentation to audiences of new work focusing on the changing face of women and work in Europe, with a sharing of professional experience and practice using both physical and online platforms
to create new opportunities for artistic exchange within Europe, increasing the mobility of artists and cultural professionals, utilising our respective networks and contacts to extend audience reach and the impact
to use the European Prospects digital platform to present the project to a global audience, in order to stimulate discussion which challenges the dominant view of gender and industry in Europe, and to encourage and support further transnational co-operation beyond the life of the project
Following an inaugural planning workshop in Kaunas, Lithuania, in October 2018, an open call for proposals was launched and 20 artist projects were selected by the partners to be featured on the online platform and in exhibitions and publications. These are:
During 2019/2020 a series of artist and curator commissions/residencies are being undertaken, hosted by the partners, and the first A Woman’s Work symposium was held in Cardiff in April 2019. A summary of this event is available here.
Partners
Ffotogallery (Cardiff, Wales)
Established in 1978, Ffotogallery is the national development agency for photography and lens-based media in Wales. Our view is outward looking, with an exhibition programme featuring artists from Wales and the rest of the world. Ffotogallery seeks to widen its impact and influence through touring exhibitions, collaborations with other organisations and galleries, print and online publishing and an extensive education and outreach programme. We initiated and continue to run the biennial Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography. Ffotogallery has an active policy of commissioning new work which, in particular, provides a vital support system to photographers and lens-based artists in Wales, forms an on-going record of culture in Wales, and reflects prevailing attitudes and developments in photography more generally.
Lithuanian Photography Artists' Union (Kaunas, Lithuania)
Established in 1933 and renamed The Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers in 1989 (now referring to itself as the Lithuanian Photographers Association), the organisation arranges photography exhibitions, seminars, and activities to support photographers, particularly encouraging a younger generation of photographers to continue the tradition of Lithuanian photography. Kaunas Photography Gallery is situated in the heart of medieval Kaunas Old Town. The gallery is one of the largest and most important art exhibition places in Lithuania and the Baltic States, dedicated to photography and contemporary art. This non-profit space presents innovative contemporary projects as well as traditional photography exhibitions. The organisation is affiliated with Kaunas Photo Festival, an annual international event.
Gallery of Photography (Dublin, Ireland)
Established in 1978, the Gallery of Photography is the national centre for contemporary photography in Ireland. It is located in an award-winning building in Temple Bar in Dublin’s city centre. The gallery’s programme of curated exhibitions showcases work from established and emerging Irish and international artists. The organisation also provides darkrooms and a fully equipped digital studio, where exhibition-quality prints and scans may be produced to the highest specifications. The Gallery also runs photography courses, masterclasses and workshops and is home to Ireland’s leading photo bookshop.
Gallery of Photography Ireland is a not-for-profit organisation supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council.
Le Château d’Eau (Toulouse, France)
The French photographer Jean Dieuzaide founded the non-profit organization Le Château d’Eau - a former water tower now turned into one of the major photographic centres in France - in 1974. Le Château d’Eau became internationally recognized for exhibiting works by prestigious artists such as Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans, Edward Weston, Robert Doisneau, Brassaï and Cartier-Bresson. With a selection of works from both renowned and emerging artists Le Château d’Eau is a place of production and distribution: exhibitions, book publishing, mediation and resource centre. Ten to twelve exhibitions are presented each year, many of international importance. Based on its experience and its special relationship with different artists, Le Château d’Eau is a cultural actor in Europe constantly seeking new creative partnerships.
Whack 'n' Bite (Finland)
Whack ´n` Bite is a recently established collective with two founding members (curator Tuula Alajoki and visual artist / designer Johanna Havimäki) from Finland. Like a visual band Whack ´n´ Bite welcomes featuring artists and colleagues for collaborations around and about photographic expression. Both Alajoki and Havimäki have background in visual arts with experience in content development, art production and international collaborations. 2012–2018 Alajoki was the director of the international photography triennial Backlight Photo Festival. Whack ´n´ Bite participates in curatorial responsibilities as well as in visual solutions with the organising partners, with the aim to create a northern reach to A Woman´s Work.
Fotosommer Stuttgart e.V. (Germany)
Fotosommer Stuttgart is a non-profit association for the promotion of contemporary photography. Fotosommer organises a triennial international festival of photography in Stuttgart, including focal exhibitions, a competitive photography awards programme, as well as accompanying events across the city. These include photographic exhibitions, workshops, lectures, discussions, information sessions, guided tours and a forum. Fotosommer is one of the largest photography events in Germany and achieves high levels of participation from artists across Europe. During non-festival years Fotosommer organises a range of exhibitions, workshops and projects.
In the penultimate leg of the exhibition’s tour, Many Voices, One Nation’s next stop is REDHOUSE, Merthyr Tydfil, from 29 January – 23 February 2020. REDHOUSE is an arts and creative industries centre situated in the Old Town Hall — a magnificent Grade II* listed building — in the heart of Merthyr Tydfil.
Many Voices, One Nation is a touring exhibition curated by Ffotogallery and the National Assembly for Wales. Commissioned by the National Assembly for Wales, the exhibition forms part of the programme of events and activities throughout 2019 to mark the first 20 years of devolution in Wales.
It uses photography and lens-based media to explore the hopes and aspirations for the future of Wales. Six artists living and working in Wales have been commissioned, incorporating photography, video and lens-based media, digital imaging, installation and mixed media. The exhibition aims to capture the richness and diversity of the geography, culture and society of Wales, and, wherever possible, encourage public participation.
The artists who have been commissioned are Luce + Harry, Zillah Bowes, Edward Brydon, Huw Alden Davies, James Hudson and Jon Pountney.
Are you a keen photographer with some work that you’d like to discuss with others? Would you like to meet in a welcoming, encouraging environment to chat with photographers and other creatives from a range of backgrounds?
If so, the Phrame PhotoJam is for you! It’s the latest in a series of informal and free portfolio reviews hosted by Phrame, a collective of creative people who love sharing work, ideas and their expertise. So, whether you are a student or a teacher, amateur or professional, do come along to our next PhotoJam!
Confused by graffiti scribbled in a Welsh backstreet demanding ‘Go Home Polish’, photographer Michal Iwanowski embarks on a thousand mile walk back to his birthplace in search of home.
Following the success of Michal Iwanowski’s exhibition of the same name at Diffusion Festival 2019, we are pleased to welcome you to a special screening of the accompanying film on Wednesday 30 October.
Ffotogallery is delighted to present the first exhibition in our new home in Cathays, Croeso. To celebrate our return to Wales’ capital, we’ve carefully selected a number works from the archive where Cardiff is the subject - from David Bowden’s Parklands of Cardiff to the more recent Cardiff After Dark by Maciej Daowicz and Faye Chamberlain’s pinhole series Sonder.
We are looking forward to Ffotogallery being situated at the heart of the city's cultural life, based in a vibrant, multicultural community. Our aim is to build on established partnerships - local, national and international - and develop new relationships with a wide range of arts, creative industry, education and community organisations in delivery of our future programme.
The exhibition continues until Saturday 12 October. Please check our ‘Visit’ page to find out how to find us.
Working in partnership with FORMAT, Ffotogallery are delighted to invite you to the inaugural presentation of The Place I Call Home at Riverlights, Derby.
This cross-cultural exhibition, commissioned by the British Council and curated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery, presents the work of 13 artists, each using photography to explore the idea of home through the experiences of people living in the Gulf and the UK at a time of rapid change and social mobility.
After scoping visits to all six GCC countries, the curator determined the vision and approach for the exhibition and commissioned several UK and Middle East based artists to produce work responding to its themes. The selected artists reflect a balance of age, gender and professional experience, as well as representation of all six GCC countries. In various ways, the work of the selected artists is about sharing stories of culture and heritage, challenging stereotypes, exploring identities, commonalities and differences.
The exhibition continues in Derby until the 28 September, and tours to three other UK venues (including Ffotogallery’s new home in Cardiff) in addition to all six Gulf states, between September 2019 and March 2020.
Ffotogallery are delighted to invite you to the Welsh premiere of The Place I Call Home, at Ffotogallery's new home in Cathays, Cardiff. This cross-cultural exhibition, commissioned by the British Council and curated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery, presents the work of 15 artists, each using photography to explore the idea of home through the experiences of people living in the Gulf and the UK at a time of rapid change and social mobility.
After scoping visits to all six GCC countries, curator for the project and Director of Ffotogallery David Drake determined the vision and approach for the exhibition and commissioned several UK and Middle East based artists to produce work responding to its themes. The selected artists reflect a balance of age, gender and professional experience, as well as representation of all six GCC countries. In various ways, the work of the selected artists is about sharing stories of culture and heritage, challenging stereotypes, exploring identities, commonalities and differences.
The exhibition continues in Cardiff until the 21 December, and tours to two other UK venues, in addition to all six Gulf states, between September 2019 and March 2020.
The artists featured in the exhibition are: Mohammed Al Kouh, Ammar Al Attar, Moath Alofi, Sara Al Obaidly, Mashael Al Hejazi, Mai Al Moataz, Abi Green & Sebastian Betancur-Montoya, Ben Soedira, Gillian Robertson, Josh Adam Jones, Richard Allenby-Pratt, Hussain Almosawi & Mariam Alarab and Zahed Sultan.
Visit the project site theplaceicallhome.org to find out more about the artists and the project.
Ffotogallery are delighted to invite you to the fifth edition of The Place I Call Home, at the iconic Fire Station in partnership with Qatar Museums. The original station was built in 1982 as the civil defense and was occupied by the fire brigade, serving the community for over thirty years until the last fire engine evacuated the place in December of 2012. After that it was handed over to Qatar Museums to be repurposed for contemporary use. Fire Station is now a creative space that allows emerging talent in Qatar to further their practice, research, and work as aspiring professional artists.
This cross-cultural exhibition, commissioned by the British Council and curated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery, presents the work of 15 artists, each using photography to explore the idea of home through the experiences of people living in the Gulf and the UK at a time of rapid change and social mobility.
After scoping visits to all six GCC countries, curator for the project and Director of Ffotogallery David Drake determined the vision and approach for the exhibition and commissioned several UK and Middle East based artists to produce work responding to its themes. The selected artists reflect a balance of age, gender and professional experience, as well as representation of all six GCC countries. In various ways, the work of the selected artists is about sharing stories of culture and heritage, challenging stereotypes, exploring identities, commonalities and differences.
The artists featured in the exhibition are: Mohammed Al Kouh, Ammar Al Attar, Sara Al Obaidly, Mashael Al Hejazi, Abi Green & Sebastian Betancur-Montoya, Ben Soedira, Richard Allenby-Pratt and Zahed Sultan.
The exhibition continues in Doha until the 21 December.
Visit the project site theplaceicallhome.org to find out more about the artists and the project.
Ffotogallery are delighted to invite you to the sixth edition of The Place I Call Home, at the Bahrain National Museum's Art Centre. The Art Centre, which is unique in its kind in the Kingdom of Bahrain, is committed to enhancing the appreciation and understanding of modern and contemporary arts. Formed as the Art Centre in May 1992, the Art Centre is one of the City’s finest galleries, and emerged as a leading force in the country for presenting prestigious exhibitions of important artists. Throughout the year the Art Centre hosts events such as workshops, artist talks, art and photography exhibitions and lectures.
This cross-cultural exhibition, commissioned by the British Council and curated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery, presents the work of 12 artists, each using photography to explore the idea of home through the experiences of people living in the Gulf and the UK at a time of rapid change and social mobility.
After scoping visits to all six GCC countries, curator for the project and Director of Ffotogallery David Drake determined the vision and approach for the exhibition and commissioned several UK and Middle East based artists to produce work responding to its themes. The selected artists reflect a balance of age, gender and professional experience, as well as representation of all six GCC countries. In various ways, the work of the selected artists is about sharing stories of culture and heritage, challenging stereotypes, exploring identities, commonalities and differences.
The artists featured in the exhibition are: Hussain Almosawi & Mariam Alarab, Mohammed Al Kouh, Ammar Al Attar, Josh Adam Jones, Eman Ali, Abi Green & Sebastian Betancur-Montoya, Moath Alofi, Ben Soedira, Gillian Robertson, Richard Allenby-Pratt and Zahed Sultan.
The exhibition continues in Bahrain until the 31 January 2020.
Visit the project site theplaceicallhome.org to find out more about the artists and the project.
Many Voices, One Nation is a touring exhibition curated by Ffotogallery and the National Assembly for Wales.
Commissioned by the National Assembly for Wales, the exhibition forms part of the programme of events and activities throughout 2019 to mark the first 20 years of devolution in Wales.
It uses photography and lens-based media to explore the hopes and aspirations for the future of Wales. Six artists living and working in Wales have been commissioned, incorporating photography, video and lens-based media, digital imaging, installation and mixed media. The exhibition aims to capture the richness and diversity of the geography, culture and society of Wales, and, wherever possible, encourage public participation.
Many Voices, One Nation will be on display at the Senedd throughout September before touring at various locations across Wales between October 2019 and June 2020.
Six photographers/lens-based artists from Wales, and/or living in Wales who work in photography, video and lens-based media, digital imaging, installation and mixed media have been commissioned.
Luce + Harry Zillah Bowes Edward Brydon Huw Alden Davies James Hudson Jon Pountney
After its successful debut at the Senedd in September, Many Voices, One Nation's next stop is Oriel 2 at Aberystwyth Arts Centre, and will be open from 6 October 2019 - 6 January 2020. Aberystwyth Arts Centre is located on Aberystwyth University's Penglais Campus, and comprises of a theatre, concert hall, studio and cinema, as well as four gallery spaces, cafes, bars and shops.
Many Voices, One Nation is a touring exhibition curated by Ffotogallery and the National Assembly for Wales. Commissioned by the National Assembly for Wales, the exhibition forms part of the programme of events and activities throughout 2019 to mark the first 20 years of devolution in Wales.
It uses photography and lens-based media to explore the hopes and aspirations for the future of Wales. Six artists living and working in Wales have been commissioned, incorporating photography, video and lens-based media, digital imaging, installation and mixed media. The exhibition aims to capture the richness and diversity of the geography, culture and society of Wales, and, wherever possible, encourage public participation.
The artists who have been commissioned are Luce + Harry, Zillah Bowes, Edward Brydon, Huw Alden Davies, James Hudson and Jon Pountney.
We are delighted to invite you to join us at a special preview event for the new Ffotogallery exhibition One Match, from 6pm on Friday 26 July 2019 at 29 Castle St, Cardiff, CF10 1BT.
Now in its 17th year, the Homeless World Cup is set to take place in Cardiff from the 27th July 2019, bringing approximately 500 players from all over the world to the nation’s capital. Photographer Paul John Roberts has been following the progress of Wales’ players and trainers in the build-up to the event, capturing the trials, tribulations and celebrations, as well as highlighting the social benefits that the Homeless World Cup can achieve. The exhibition One Match, supported by Ffotogallery, hopes to increase awareness of the individuals facing homelessness, and challenge the negative stereotypes attributed to them by society.
Through football, the subjects pictured in Roberts’ work become teammates who learn to trust and share. They have a responsibility to attend training sessions and games, to be punctual, and prepared to participate. They feel that they are part of something larger than themselves. From street to stadium, the sense of empowerment that comes from participating in the sport helps them see that they can change their lives.
Paul John Roberts speaks of his time working on the project:
“I knew I couldn’t be comprehensive, but I could try to see more deeply the stories behind the players by talking to everyone I met, documenting slivers of their routines and witnessing their personal moments, linking this Homeless World Cup event to the people who through their lives, give it power.
I have found deep joy and utter despair in this project. It evokes in me contemplation and introspection on how humanity squanders our most valuable resource, each other.”
Actor and activist Michael Sheen, who spearheaded the successful bid for Wales to host this year’s event comments:
“The transformation the players make, using football as the hook, is just inspiring to witness and is something we can all positively contribute towards. The football pitch works best when we help each other out. It’s the same in life. Homelessness is not about ‘the others’. It’s about ‘us’! We have a responsibility to help each other.”
One Match will be on display from 27th July – 10th August, in what will be Ffotogallery’s final show at the Castle Street venue since establishing its long-term home in Cathays, which is due to open to the public in September 2019.
Hide the resistant - make visible the ephemeral. A new principle to represent time in photography. The Timeshifts series uses a typical photographic principle to represent time in a new way. The fact that negative and positive mutually neutralize themselves in colour, brightness and contrast. Unlike other photographic means such as motion blur or sequence Timeshifts only shows the change in time - all other image content neutralizes to 50 % gray. Like two different positions provide spatial vision, overlaying two moments in time shows a space of time.
Before the Content
Before The Content is a series of photographs taken without a camera. But, like photographs, they are snapshots. They show the brief moment of a website building up in which the structure is already visible, but the content is not yet loaded. In a time where we are overwhelmed by messages and content these works give us a relaxing break and open our spirit and perception.
The Nemesis Machine is a large installation representing the complexities of the real time city as an ever shifting and morphing system. It visualises life in the metropolis on the basis of real time data transmitted from a network of sensors, enabling the replica city of electronic components reflects in real time what is happening outside. In appearance, the Nemesis Machine is like Big Brother through the lens of the Internet of Things. It gives visitors a bird's eye view of a cybernetic cityscape, a sonic and visually animated cluster of skyscrapers constructed of silicon and circuit boards.
Small cameras capture images of the city’s visitors so that they become part of the artwork. The installation goes beyond simple single user interaction, by monitoring and surveying behaviours, activities, and changing information in the world around us using networked devices and electronically transmitted information across the internet. This includes observation from a distance by means of custom-made sensors, networked cameras and computers. The artwork reforms this information and data creating what the artist calls ‘parallel realities’.
Through The Nemesis Machine, Stanza is positing a new social space that exists in between the independent online networks where future cities will be merged in real time to create connected up data cities. The landscape will become an observable. The installation poses the question of who owns the data and speculates that virtual borders will create new systems of control.
The Foley Objects series involves a game of synaesthesia. The work contains images of very disparate objects bearing captions that offer seemingly unconnected definitions. After studying the image, the viewer is able to understand that the words refer to the sound generated by the objects that are portrayed, that they give us a mental reference to an experience which has nothing to do with the image.
Kina has collected objects from various Foley artists and sound designers. This collection of images could be seen as an archive of sounds, as well as a twist between documentation and absurd playfulness.
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Arr. for a Scene is a documentary of two Foley artists while they are producing sounds for one of the most famous film scene in the film history (the shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, 1960). This performance is documented on 35 mm film. The original film scene will remain invisible while the viewer sees only the Foley artists creating sound effects for the scene, such as footsteps, shower and door closing. The film examines the way sounds are constructed for the use of cinema and what happens when the structures of a film are dismantled into parts.
2017, 35 mm film transferred to 4K/HD, 5min 18 sec, stereo / 5.1
“In 2008, I came across a small graffiti in my neighbourhood in Cardiff, and it spelt ‘Go home Polish.’ I dwelt on it for a while, unsure whether I really should be going anywhere or whether I already was home.In 2016, with the Brexit referendum breaking Britain in half, and the rising wave of nationalism sweeping across Europe, the slogan took on an even darker tone, and I felt compelled to respond to it. Literally”.
In April 2018, Iwanowski set off on a 1900 km journey, on foot, between his two homes - Wales and Poland - a British passport in one hand, a Polish one in the other. He drew a straight line on the map, got a pair of good hiking shoes, and walked out of his Cardiff flat, facing east: Wales. England. France. Belgium. Holland. Germany. Czech Republic. Poland. His goal was to ask people about home, in a journey that would take 105 days to complete.
Although Iwanowski anticipated confrontation, polemics, and awkwardness, the antagonism never really came. On the contrary, people responded to the question in a deeply personal way: human to human, rather than citizen to foreigner. Most put their hand on their chest to show him where home was. Many wanted to tag along. Few mentioned their nationality. Only one chased him away.
As the journey progressed, the Go home Polish slogan became irrelevant. However, Iwanowski decided to keep it as a title, and a symbolic axis on which this project is set, a challenge to the language that dehumanises the other. To avoid generalisation and to look at the geopolitical agenda from the perspective of each individual.
And where is home? The answer is elusive and complex, a riddle that transcends time and administration.
This open call invites artists and photographers who meet the eligibility requirements below to submit proposals for new work to be included in Many Voices, One Nation, a touring exhibition, curated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery Wales, and Alice Randone, curator at the National Assembly for Wales.
It is commissioned by the National Assembly for Wales and will form part of the programme of events and activities throughout 2019 to mark the first 20 years of devolution in Wales.
The programme aims to:
Engage, entertain and inform a variety of audiences;
Reflect contemporary Welsh life, culture and excellence;
Help people understand Wales' position in the world;
Showcase the Senedd as the home of Welsh public life;
Help people understand the impact of politics on their lives, and understand and value democracy.
Many Voices, One Nation
The exhibition should use photography and lens-based media to explore the hopes and aspirations for the future of Wales.
It should aim to capture the richness and diversity of the geography, culture and society of Wales, and, wherever possible, encourage public participation.
The exhibition will be on tour at various locations across Wales in 2019/20, and will be launched at the Senedd, the centre for democracy and devolution in Wales, in September 2019.
The National Assembly for Wales is the democratically elected body that represents the interests of Wales and its people, makes laws for Wales, agrees Welsh taxes and holds the Welsh Government to account. It is made up of 60 elected Assembly Members, who represent a specific area of Wales as a member of a particular political party or as an independent member. Assembly Members meet every week in the Senedd when the Assembly is in session, to discuss issues of importance to Wales and its people; they pose questions to Welsh Ministers, carry out debates and examine Welsh laws.
Ffotogallery is the national development agency for photography and lens-based media in Wales, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2018.
The overall curatorial strategy is to ensure the exhibition content:
Is of high quality, contemporary and relevant to the themes of the exhibition;
Reflects the richness and diversity of Wales and its communities by representing people of different ages and backgrounds from different parts of Wales;
Engages, entertains and informs a variety of audiences reflecting contemporary Welsh life, culture and excellence;
Is thought provoking and stimulates a dialogue focusing on the hopes and aspirations for Wales over the next 20 years;
Does not compromise the Assembly's political neutrality and impartiality.
Focus of the Open Call
Eligibility
Up to six photographers/lens-based artists will be commissioned.
Responding to the exhibition themes, the commissioned artists/photographers will create new work around the themes of hopes and aspirations for the future of Wales.
We welcome proposals from artists from Wales, and/or living in Wales who work in photography, video and lens-based media, digital imaging, installation and mixed media. The proposal can be for entirely new work, or a development of work in progress. We also welcome proposals from artists who work with archival and 'found' photography in the production of new work.
Commissions will be awarded in late March and the new work needs to be produced in the period between April 2019 – July 2019. The curators will provide support and advice throughout the production period and around the selection, edit and production of the exhibition.
How much is each commission worth?
Each commissioned artist/photographer will receive a £3,000 artist fee (to include all production costs, taxes and artist's fees), payable in two installments.
Additional print, production and installation costs relating to the exhibition will be met by Ffotogallery.
How to apply for a commission
Artists and photographers are invited to submit proposals electronically to Liz Hewson, Production Coordinator, Ffotogallery, by 12.00 on Monday 18 March.
1) Statement of the nature of the work to be produced and its relevance to the exhibition themes, timescale and process, your experience and why you are eligible (maximum 500 words)
2) Examples of previous work (web links, jpegs, pdf)
3) Brief artist/photographer CV (six pages maximum, including full contact details and those for two professional contacts who can provide references)
Noises explores Jamaican dancehall culture in the UK, focusing in particular on the role played by women, and reflecting on the ideas of femininity within this manifestation. Dancehall is the leading form of Jamaican popular culture expanded worldwide throughout Afro-Caribbean diaspora communities. In the United Kingdom, dancehall celebrations take place outside of the mainstream circuit as a standing manifestation of Jamaican identity. Although the term is relatively new, the set of practices known as dancehall can be traced back to earlier dance performances such as mento dancing, the product of a syncretic blending of African and European cultural forms.
Dancehall has been defined as a space of collective celebration and social debate, determined by the use of Jamaican Patois in the lyrics and a flamboyant performance of sexuality in the dance. Mannerisms implicit in dancehall are the cause of constant controversy in the West; it is often condemned for its dramatic, violent and sexual expressions, whilst the complexities and heritage of its tradition is widely ignored.
The project aims to challenge the stereotypical portrayal of what is often referred to as a subculture, and through the collaborative process between the artist and a group of British Jamaican women, the resulting photographs embody universal subjects such as birth, love, sex and death.
Quite soon after the invention of photography in Europe it arrived in Iran. According to Tahmasbpoor (Photographer Naser al-Din Shah, 2002), as early as 1844 (1260 in the Iranian calendar) an Iranian, for the first time, stood as the subject for a photographer. The family portrait was made by the Qajar king Naser al-Din Shah.
In 2004, I visited the Golestan museum and worked on my archival research for 2 years. The Golestan Archives are located in central Tehran, which was once a home for Qajars, the king’s wives, Harem women, and their relatives. I decided to use some of these old historical photographs from the Qajar period and chose a number of photographs from the King’s kingdom, which I used as masks.
In my practice, I decided to tell my story through others, others who lived in the past and whose lives and stories still exist in the present. I recalled the past to realise who I am today.
Which faces would have to be concealed behind these historical masks? I started taking photographs of people around me, whom I saw every day. My family. My kingdom. The masks of the past mythologise the absence and presence in my work. They are a testament to the ones I had in my life and memory.
Today, after 10 years, I am editing these images, my memories and my life.
The desire to be home and the sorrow of separation create a new narrative, which is now the narrative of my life.
The hope of return transformed my pictures into people whom I love, miss and have lost.
The subjects carry the masks of the past, but they are still there. They are present. The masks could be carried by anyone and anyone could become a mask.
Women’s role in industry and technology-based work in post-war Europe is a hitherto untold story, and audiovisual archives have tended to focus on male-orientated ‘heavy industries’ such as coal, iron and steel, or large scale engineering sectors such as shipbuilding, construction, aerospace and car manufacturing. Yet women continue to play a key role in many manufacturing industries – for example, textiles, electronics, food and drinks, plastics and pharmaceuticals – a reality which is neither acknowledged nor strongly represented in European cultural archives.
A Woman’s Work is a project that uses photography and digital media to address that deficit through artistic collaboration and exchange across borders, and the co-production of exhibitions, publications and online resources that challenge the dominant view of gender and industry in Europe.
Proposals by artists and curators based in Europe are invited for projects which address the core themes of A Woman’s Work, a 24 month collaborative programme in which cultural partners in the United Kingdom, Lithuania, Ireland, France and Finland will work together in pursuit of the following objectives:
to enable artists and cultural professionals from across Europe to cooperate around the making and presentation to audiences of new work focusing on the changing face of women and work in Europe, with a sharing of professional experience and practice using both physical and online platforms
to create new opportunities for artistic exchange within Europe, increasing the mobility of artists and cultural professionals, utilising our respective networks and contacts to extend audience reach and the impact.
Click here to find out more about the project and how to apply
L'Avventura 1960 | Michelangelo Antonioni | 143 mins | Italian (subs) | B&W | PG
Ffotogallery and Snowcat Cinema present a special pop-up screening of L'Avventura at Turner House Gallery, Penarth.
Katrien De Blauwer is a 'photographer without a camera'. Her unique cut and paste style, combining and recycling striking images, resonates with and reflects the aesthetics of European New Wave cinema - the films of Godard and Antonioni being notable influences.
We present Michelangelo Antonioni's beautiful and mysterious drama, L'Avventura (1960) as an accompaniment to a fascinating selection of Katrien's work. Introductions to both the exhibition and the film will precede the screening.
Katrien's exhibition, Reprise, is at Turner House until the 8th of December.
Doors open at 5:30pm - the event begins at 6pm.
This is a pop-up screening taking place in a non-theatrical venue. Unfortunately, the top floor where the screening will take place has no wheelchair access/lift. Refunds will only be provided if the screening does not go ahead.
Join us on Wednesday 21st November for a day of well-being at Turner House Gallery, Penarth.
From 12pm we will have a range of activities on offer so drop in any time that suits you:
Ani Saunders, musician and artist featured in our Ffotoview exhibition earlier this year, will be hosting a bilingual collage workshop, inspired by our current exhibition Katrien De Blauwer: Reprise.
Local business Glass By Design will be hosting some glass-making activities throughout the day
Penarth’s local health and nutrition store Pro Health & Nutrition will be sharing some of their well-being remedies
Why not pop in for a soothing Indian Head Massage or Hand Massage? Staff from Beauty Box will be on hand between 2-6pm
The day will finish with a panel discussion from 6pm with creative industry and health and well-being professionals. Come along and learn more about the relationship between well-being and the arts, plus there’ll be an opportunity for a Q&A. The day’s events are free, however we ask that you book a ticket for the panel discussion so we know how many to expect.
Panellists:
Natalie Jones - Vlogger and social change-maker encouraging society to speak more openly and be more accepting of mental health
Louise Wheeler - Photographer capturing and documenting her own personal experience struggling with mental health problems day to day
Dr Annie Beyer - long standing psychologist and expert in the relationship between creativity and well-being
David Sinden - Photographer of the project After - a direct creative response to his own brain injury
Diffusion 2019’s theme is Sound+Vision. The festival explores the relationship between sound, photography and lens-based media, and how in contemporary visual culture the transmission, presentation and reading of images is influenced by sound, and likewise how music is experienced visually as well as aurally.
Now in its fourth biennial edition, Diffusion 2019 features a month long programme of exhibitions, interventions, screenings, performances, events and celebrations in both physical and virtual spaces and places. The excitement of directly participating in the festival, and the international reach and visibility of the event, is further enhanced through printed and online publications, websites, mobile content and discussion on social media platforms.
We invite you to join us at a special preview event for Reprise, 6-9pm on Friday 26 October 2018 at Ffotogallery, Turner House, in Penarth.
Katrien De Blauwer’s approach is quite unique. Collecting and recycling photographic images from magazines, she draws on her own interior world of memories and feelings to spontaneously create exquisite and intimate artworks that appeal to our collective unconscious and evoke the language of film, surrealism and photomontage. Having been producing artworks almost daily for over 20 years, De Blauwer remains a very private person and only in recent years has begun to exhibit and sell her work. Her first UK solo retrospective at Ffotogallery, from 26 October – 8 December 2018, includes work from all stages of her career, including previously unseen early work, artist notebooks and her newest work in which she has introduced painting alongside photography. The curatorial approach will not be chronological, but reveal specific visual correspondences and motifs that have recurred as her work evolved from highly personal narratives to more universal concerns.
Katrien de Blauwer: Reprise is at Ffotogallery, Turner House Gallery, Plymouth Road, Penarth, Cardiff CF64 3DH from 26 October – 8 December 2018, Tues-Sat 11am – 5pm. Curated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery, in partnership with Charlotte Boudon, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Paris.
Join us at Ffotogallery for a Q&A focused on The Representation of Muslim Women in Photography.
Ayesha Khan, the creator of ‘The Everyday’ photographic project that documents positive and empowering images of Muslim women, will be joined by a select panel to discuss this current topic.
You'll be able to present your questions to the panel, explore Ffotoview (an exhibition celebrating Wales and Wales-based photographic talent) and enjoy Halal refreshments.
This is a free event with no booking required. The Q&A will begin at 6.30pm. Although the event is free we will invite you to pay-what-you-can to cover the costs of refreshments.
We are delighted to be working in partnership with the community group MEND, Muslim Engagement and Development, for this event.
Ffotogallery is pleased to present 212 Degrees Fahrenheit, a new exhibition of steam train photography by the late John Wiltshire, on show at Turner House, Penarth, from 7th – 28th September, with a special preview event on 6th September from 6pm.
The exhibition is a showcase of John’s steam portfolio from 1948 until the end of industrial steam in the UK in the late 1970s. Suitable for not just the enthusiast, the work shows how railways were a part of everyday life in the 1950s and 60s, focussing on the people working daily with steam locomotives on British railways and industrial estates.
On his passing in 2016, John’s photographic collection passed onto his son Andrew, a transport author who has published books on the subject of ships and buses, some including his father’s work. Andrew Wiltshire and work colleague at Cardiff University Peter Brabham have, over the last five years, worked together to collate and digitize the collection comprising of over 4000 images and accompanying written work.
Feeling ‘at home’ in a place embodies many things - a sense of belonging, familiarity, acceptance, independence, security and prospects. ‘Home’ is a word with a strong emotional resonance, beyond its literal meaning of the ‘place one lives’.
Home is represented by a combination of factors, affinity with the place where one resides, by the proximity of family and friends, by personal and community identity, by how one lives and works, by shared values and experiences.
This open call invites artists and photographers who meet the eligibility requirements below to submit proposals for new work to be included in The Place I Call Home, a touring exhibition curated by David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery Wales, commissioned by the British Council, that uses photography and lens-based media to explore the notion of home as it relates to contemporary experiences of the Arabic diaspora living in the UK and British people living in the Gulf.
The exhibition is part of a Gulf-wide initiative between January 2017 and March 2020 to create new opportunities to develop mutual understanding and respect through sharing and appreciating Gulf and UK culture, history and heritage.
Suzie Larke, Amanda Jackson, Dan Wood, Megan Winstone, Ellie Hopkins, Ayesha Khan, Sam Ivin, Rob Hudson, Ani Saunders, Jason Thomas, Ann Davies, Abbie Trayler-Smith
As part of 40:40 Vision, a year long programme of exhibitions, events and projects marking our 40th
anniversary, Ffotogallery is proud to present Ffotoview. The exhibition is a celebration of Welsh and Wales-based photographic talent, including work from 12 selected artists on www.ffotoview.org, an online calendar unveiling a new featured artist each month.
From eco-villages in West Wales to empowering images of Muslim women, the landscapes and communities of the south Wales’ valleys to the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in Cardiff, Ffotoview explores different perspectives on life in contemporary Wales and various approaches to photography in a digital age.
The exhibition is at 29 Castle Street, Cardiff, in the space being developed into Ffotogallery’s new city centre venue. Ffotoview is timed to coincide with the National Eisteddfod in Cardiff and celebrates the diversity and quality of Wales’ photographic talent.
Since its inception 40 years ago, Ffotogallery has been at the forefront of developing a contemporary photographic culture in Wales through our commissioning and presentation of new work in exhibitions and at international festivals and events, and our support for emerging photographic and lens-based artists.
We are excited to be able to invite you to view the Ffotoview exhibition at our new space, which we are currently fundraising to develop over the next year.
Ffotoview sets the scene for the next phase of Ffotogallery’s work, in which a new generation of photographers and lens-based artists will emerge at a time when we increasingly receive and present creative content across both physical and virtual platforms.
At the Ffotoview exhibition preview on Thursday 2 August 2018, David Drake will reveal more about Ffotogallery’s plans for its new city centre base, and the 40th anniversary fundraising campaign for fit out and development of this new international centre for photography in the heart of Cardiff.
As part of 40:40 Vision, a year long programme of exhibitions, events and projects marking our 40th anniversary, Ffotogallery invites you to view a special exhibition in our new city centre space in Cardiff. Ffotoview is a celebration of Welsh and Wales-based photographic talent, featuring work from 2018’s twelve selected artists on www.ffotoview.org, an online calendar unveiling a different artist each month.
The exhibition continues from 3 August - 29 September 2018.
As part of 40/40 Vision, a year long celebration of Ffotogallery's 40th Anniversary and running alongside our latest exhibition Chronicle, we are proud to present the fourth in a series of talks with industry professionals looking at photography over the last four decades.
Derrick Price, Chair of Ffotogallery, and author of the new book 'Coal Cultures: Picturing Mining Communities and Cultures' will choose his favourite iconic photographic images from the 1990s/early 2000s and reveal the stories behind his selection.
The third in Ffotogallery's programme of family-friendly summer workshops taking place at Turner House, Penarth.
Become an architect and curator for the day at Ffotogallery by designing your own exhibition space. Share what your perfect gallery would look like at this hands-on craft drop in session. Activities will be available for all ages.
All materials will be supplied. Children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
We are proud to have a pay-what-you-can policy. Everyone is welcome to attend and any cash donation will be gratefully received. Please book your free place so we can ensure we have enough materials on the day.
We regret that currently only the ground floor of the gallery is wheelchair accessible and we do not have toilet facilities on this floor. Please phone us on 029 2034 1667 if you require more information about accessibility.
The second in Ffotogallery's programme of family-friendly summer workshops taking place at Turner House, Penarth.
Explore what the selfie is really about. Take your own selfies and use them to design an exhibition poster for a show all about you. This drop in session will give you and the whole family skills to make the perfect selfie with activities for all ages.
All materials will be supplied. Children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
We are proud to have a pay-what-you-can policy. Everyone is welcome to attend and any cash donation will be gratefully received. Please book your free place so we can ensure we have enough materials on the day.
We regret that currently only the ground floor of the gallery is wheelchair accessible and we do not have toilet facilities on this floor. Please phone us on 029 2034 1667 if you require more information about accessibility.
The first in Ffotogallery's programme of family-friendly summer workshops taking place at Turner House, Penarth.
Learn how photography has changed over the years from the earliest form of photography, the pinhole, to how we use our smartphones to capture and share images today. This drop in session will let you and the whole family explore photography across the decades with activities for all ages.
All materials will be supplied. Children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
We are proud to have a pay-what-you-can policy. Everyone is welcome to attend and any cash donation will be gratefully received. Please book your free place so we can ensure we have enough materials on the day.
We regret that currently only the ground floor of the gallery is wheelchair accessible and we do not have toilet facilities on this floor. Please phone us on 029 2034 1667 if you require more information about accessibility.
As part of 40/40 Vision, a year long celebration of Ffotogallery's 40th Anniversary and running alongside our latest exhibition Chronicle, we are proud to present the third in a series of talks with industry professionals looking at photography over the last four decades.
Against the backdrop of the Thatcher years, between 1983 and 1992 David Drake established and ran a pioneering media centre in London focusing on photography, video and graphic design, as part of an independent media movement that included Four Corners, Blackfriars Photographic Project, Autograph, Watershed, f Stop, Fantasy Factory and West London Media Project. Working with artists and filmmakers such as Joanne O’Brien, Susan Trangmar, Ken Loach and Jamoula McKean, the organisation nurtured new talent and provided an oppositional voice to the prevailing socio-political agenda in Britain. As the 1990s dawned, digital technology and rampant commercialism brought profound changes to photography and media activism in the UK and the ‘independent photography’ movement started to fragment and change direction.
About David Drake
David Drake has 35 years experience at senior level in the visual arts and media sector, for the last 9 years as Director of Ffotogallery. His varied career has included extensive curatorial, publishing, management and production experience for organisations as diverse as Watershed, Arts Council England, Picture This Moving Image, FIVE magazine, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery and HP Labs. During the 1980s he established and ran for ten years a groundbreaking media centre in London delivering industry standard photographic, television and design training programmes, in partnership with various broadcasters, cultural organisations and higher education institutions. David was Director of Visual Arts and Media at South West Arts 1992 – 2002, creating new artist development programmes and spearheading the regional arts board’s engagement with emerging technologies and wider creative industry agendas. In 1998 he was awarded a Winston Churchill Travel and Research Fellowship and spent six months investigating artists’ use of technology in North America and Europe. He was also producer of Electric Pavilion 2002-2005, a three-year online project showcasing creativity as found within the city of Bristol, and founder of the Bristol Stories digital storytelling programme.
In a series of events accompanying the Chronicle exhibition, Deborah Baker, acclaimed artist, photographer and Course Coordinator for BA (Hons) Photography at Falmouth University, chooses ten images that represent her 1970s and which set her on the course to becoming a professional artist-photographer and the very first Director of Ffotogallery 1979-1980
About Deborah Baker
Deborah studied Creative Photography during the 70s with Paul Hill, Thomas Cooper, John Blakemore, and Raymond Moore. She worked in New York with Ralph Gibson and artists Mary Ellen Mark and Robert Mapplethorpe. Her work has been exhibited at major galleries nationally and internationally. Her recent body of work ‘In Paradiso’ was exhibited by LA Noble Gallery at The William Morris Museum in 2014 and as part of ‘Merge Visible’ at the Mall Gallery in London 2016. Deborah has taught on many UK photographic degree courses, including LCC, University of Westminster, Surrey Institute, Birmingham City University and Falmouth University.
We are delighted to be included in this year’s Penarth Open Studio Trail, taking place between 22nd - 24th June. At Turner House we’ll be hosting eight artists from a range of disciplines.
Join us for the first in a series of talks organised to coincide with our current exhibition ‘Chronicle’.
Dr Paul Cabuts, photographer and Honorary Research Fellow at National Museum Wales will be in attendance discussing The Valleys Project and highlighting 10 of his favourite works from the series of commissions.
Ffotogallery originally established The Valleys Project in 1984, as a unique undertaking to document what has to be one of the most beautiful yet industrialized landscapes of Northern Europe. During the five years of the project to 1990, it has drawn together the work of photographers resident in Wales and from further afield, to create a contemporary visual record and social commentary encompassing a broad geographical spread of the South Wales Valleys.
‘Chronicle’ draws on archival and contemporary material to tell the story of how Ffotogallery has developed over the last forty years, against the backdrop of changes in the nature and role of photography in society and the rise of digital culture. The exhibition continues until 4th August, and forms part of our anniversary celebrations during 2018.
Marcelo Brodsky is an Argentine artist and human rights activist, working with images and documents of specific events to investigate broader social, political and historical issues. In 1968 – the Fire of Ideas Brodsky features archival images of student and worker demonstrations around the world, carefully annotated by hand in order to deconstruct what lay behind worldwide social turbulence in the late 1960s. Images of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in London and Tokyo sit alongside protests in Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico, Prague and San Paolo against military regimes and oppressive government structures. For decades, Brodsky owned and directed a photo agency with offices throughout Latin America. His sophisticated understanding of picture editing, of how they are sequenced changes the way audiences read images, enables him to use text and graphical devices in association with each image to shift the viewer’s perspective and to reveal new layers of meaning.
1968: the Fire of Ideas is a Ffotogallery touring exhibition, first shown in Wales at Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography 2017.
Mike Perry's 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.
This major new exhibition brings together recent bodies of work addressing how the natural biodiversity of landscapes and marine environments is undermined and made toxic by human neglect, agricultural mismanagement and the pursuit of short-term profit at the expense of long-term sustainability.
Combining conceptual aesthetics with a pressing concern for the marine environment, Perry's images shed a different light on the health of the seascapes one might see in tourist brochures.
Môr Plastig (welsh for ‘Plastic Sea’) is an ongoing body of work that classifies objects washed up by the sea into groupings; bottles, shoes, grids, abstracts, and others. By using a high-resolution camera to capture the surface detail, the artist allows the viewer to ‘read’ markings and scars etched into the objects by the ocean over months and, in some cases, years. The viewer is intrigued and challenged by how a polluting object can be so aesthetically appealing.
In Perry’s words, “in addition to seeing these pieces as symbols of over-consumption and disregard for the environment, I also see them as evidence of the beauty and power of nature to sculpt our world”.
Land/Sea is originally produced by Ffotogallery, Cardiff, and curated by David Drake, Ffotogallery, and Ben Borthwick, Plymouth Arts Centre. The accompanying publication includes contributions from the writers George Monbiot and Skye Sherwin.
@ffotogalleryplatform is an Instagram-based project created to help emerging photographers and lens-based artists make their work accessible to a wider audience, including industry professionals and peers through Ffotogallery's network, and to help create links within the photographic and artistic community.
If you’re interested in showing your own work on the platform, then simply email a short proposal including examples of your work to [email protected]
Or if you simply want to check out the work that’s on offer, then follow @ffotogalleryplatform on Instagram. Recent residents include James Sykes, Peter Britton and Josie Purcell.
For Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice 2015 we present ‘…the rest is smoke’ by artist Helen Sear, an official Collateral Event of the 56th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.
Commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales and curated by Ffotogallery, ‘…the rest is smoke’ comprises a suite of new work conceived for and presented in five discrete spaces within the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, a church and former convent in the Castello area of Venice.
Ffotogallery has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with the artist, publishing Sear’s thirty- year retrospective monograph Inside The View in 2012, and we previously exhibited her work on several occasions both internationally and in Wales.
For Cymru yn Fenis/Wales in Venice, Ffotogallery appointed to our exhibition team independent curator Stuart Cameron and assistant curator/project manager Kathryn Standing. Cameron curated the artist’s first major exhibition in Wales, and their relationship has been built up over thirty years engendering a strong basis of mutual respect and confidence. Cameron’s curatorial rapport with the artist, and sensitivity to the ideas and creative impulses in her work, has been critical to the development and realisation of this project.
As befits a collateral project, ‘…the rest is smoke’ is both rooted in the local and familiar landscapes of Wales, and responds to the wider context of the Venice Biennale. For the 56th edition of La Biennale di Venezia, curator Okwui Enwenzor has chosen the theme ‘All The World’s Futures’, examining the relationship between art and the development of the human, social and political world. Although ‘…the rest is smoke’ was not developed specifically in response to this theme, it chimes well with it. The affective qualities of the work actively engage the viewer in the illusionistic space of the image, in dialogue with the architecture of the physical space in which it is sited, disrupting the single point perspective in order to present landscapes and their relationships with the human body as something immersive and complex.
For this accompanying online project Experience Wales in Venice, we are pleased to be working closely with the selected artists of ACW's Invigilator Plus programme. As well as creating a web platform to showcase Helen Sear and the exhibition, we are working with the fifteen artists to document their individual experiences of Wales in Venice. We are making available a wealth of resources for online audiences, such as artist interviews, documentation of the exhibition evolving as well as downloadable workshops for schools. In addition to the fantastic work done in Venice by the invigilators we are hoping that the website will provide new audience insights and contribute to critical dialogue around Helen’s work internationally.
For its inaugural festival in 2013, Diffusion focused on the state of photography and lens-based media in a digital age, and its role in documenting people’s lives and experiences and in articulating local, national and international identities.
Diffusion 2013 attracted 56,500 visitors from Wales and beyond and offered a rich programme of exhibitions, events and participatory creative activities in virtual and real spaces.
Between 1 and 31 May 2013 Diffusion presented:
20 exhibitions across 15 venues within the city, from the National Museum Cardiff to Chapter Arts, Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama to St. David’s Hall. Diffusion also transformed the Tramshed, a recently vacated 19th Century industrial building, bringing it into cultural use for the very first time.
5 satellite exhibitions at 3 venues in Swansea, Caerphilly and Aberystwyth
A one-day symposium at the National Museum attended by 200 speakers and delegates from international galleries, museums and the commercial art world, including a keynote address by world-renowned artist Richard Wentworth.
A two-day Independent Publishing Weekend at Chapter attended by 635 exhibitors and visitors including a photo book fair, symposium, workshops, book launches and events.
Presentation of photographic and lens-based work by 120 artists and publishers from Wales, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Lithuania, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United States, Colombia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Latvia, and the Czech Republic.
An online Diffusion Experience in which artist interviews, slideshows, reviews, videos and other content were uploaded to the festival website throughout the month offering live documentation of events, an immersive experience for viewers around the world and a comprehensive archive of Diffusion 2013.
New participatory artworks in public spaces including Ffotohive, Camper Obscura, Cardiff Pop-Up Portrait Studio and Cardiff Encounters and the Cardiff PhotoMarathon.
A family friendly programme of participatory activities including exhibition tours, artist walks and talks, four Platform debates, iPhoneography, Gif Gathering, Book Binding, Cardiff Chronicles and Embroidered Portraits workshops, and Tea and Cake Tuesdays.
Ffotoview was originally launched in 2018 to celebrate Ffotogallery’s 40th anniversary, and is an online monthly calendar featuring a new artist each month. In 2018 we showcased twelve artists whose projects and/or backgrounds are routed in Wales. The online presentation was also realised as a physical exhibition in Cardiff.
In 2019, to coincide with our international project The Place I Call Home, we featured recent work from some of the commissioned artists. The Place I Call Home explores the idea of home related to the experiences of people living in the Gulf and the UK at a time of rapid change and social mobility. All of the artists are either GCC nationals working/living in the UK, or UK nationals working/living in the GCC states of Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Over a number of months, school children from Rhydypenau Primary School worked with CAST and Ffotogallery on creating an animation for their school song “Kites”.
After initially involving the whole school in a number of workshops run by Cast, a selection of participants from each year group worked with animator Matthew Wright and Ffotogallery Education on developing materials for the themes and visual motifs contained within the school song.
Using a combination of still photography, drawing, scanned objects and digital image manipulation, pupils were encouraged to generate illustrative artwork that communicated the schools’ Fair trade ethos and team spirit.
The project won Rhydypenau Primary School the prestigious Arts Mark Gold Award.
Working with the Groundwork Trust Caerphilly, Ffotogallery Education delivered a two day workshop at Angel House, a popular meeting place for young people in Pengham.
The group of differing ages were introduced to photography and visual literacy in an interactive session about the work of landscape photographers Ansel Adams and Faye Godwin before exploring the world of macro nature photography using National Geographic Photography online resources.
In a number of quizzes and photographic treasure hunts the young people explored the surrounding Parc Coedtir, Rhymney river and Aberbargoed grasslands. Back at Angel House, the group was introduced to editing and enhancing their photographs using iPhoto and Photoshop.
The resulting prints were framed by Ffotogallery and exhibited in Pengham a few weeks later. The work is now also exhibited online via Groundwork Caerphilly’s Flickr stream.
Children nationwide were invited to make photo-postcards depicting the landscape that surrounds them. These were then posted to Turner House where they were hung alongside James Morris’s ‘A Landscape Of Wales’. Many local children took part in our half-term workshop, where the Education Team was on site to help participants produce, print and hang up their own postcard.
To view all the entries, please visit Ffotogallery’s Flickr stream.
In February 2011, Ffotogallery hosted a daylong celebration of Welsh sound and music in response to James Morris’s A Landscape Of Wales exhibition.
During the day Turner House was a hub of artist-led, practical sound-making workshops for families, followed by an evening of intimate musical performances.
NOISE Artists Murray Ward and Casey Raymond enabled younger children to explore the world of amplified sound, with contacts mics, guitars and electronic oddities on hand to create big noise from little bodies.
SOUND Composer and musician Matthew Lovett and students from UWN’s Creative Sound & Music helped children record and edit found sounds.
SONG Songwriters Sweet Baboo and H. Hawkline raucously guided a gaggle of children and parents through writing our very own song! Making up new words and singing your lungs out was very much encouraged.
The evening performers were Sweet Baboo, H.Hawkline, Failed Nasa Experiment, Trwbador and Jemma Roper.
Karen Ingham’s ‘Piece of Mind Mask’ Participatory Web Project
If peace of mind evades you why not settle for a piece of mind in the form of a downloadable, printable version of the Piece of Mind Mask.
Click here to print and cut out Karen Ingham’s monochrome mind mask and colour and customize it, transforming her thoughts into yours. You are then invited to take a snap of yourself wearing the mask and send it to [email protected] to add your photo to the gallery of participant images.
Ffotogallery Education developed Diffusion Experience as a central online component of Diffusion Cardiff International Festival of Photography. It offers an exciting virtual experience of the festival – its exhibitions, events, debates, people, venues and interventions throughout the city in an exciting online platform, comprising of a wealth of film, photography, drawing, writing and crowd sourced content – your tweets, your pictures, your experience. Throughout the festival we worked with a group of dedicated documentation team volunteers who helped us capture this first month long visual extravaganza in the process creating a unique legacy for the festival and our audience.
“I have felt like I am at Diffusion myself because of the festival’s spectacularly interactive website. What an amazing resource, easy-to-use and as technologically advanced as they come!”
This current project is co-ordinated by Ffotogallery in partnership with Crest Nicholson and the Vale of Glamorgan Council.
Pupils from six schools in Penarth have been invited to tell the story of the Penarth Heights site, from the idealism of the 1970s social housing project the ‘Billy Banks’ to the decline and regeneration of the area.
This exciting project links art, history, creative writing and digital story-telling. Visit the website penarthheightsproject.co.uk.
Lightbox is a major online resource for Art and Design Teachers and young people in Wales. It is the product of a 3 year period of research and consultation with schools and art teachers across Wales in collaboration with the exam board and NGfL. Visually exciting, rich in opportunities for learning, it promotes the creative use of digital technologies, photography and moving image within the curriculum.
The resource provides advice, training and inspiration to teachers and learners in 3 categories:
Learn – a guided tour through a wealth online visual art and design content – artists, galleries, and resources from Wales and around the world
Assess – support in the assessment of innovative art and design practice from people at GCSE and A’level
Progress – addressing the skills gap between education and careers in the creative industries. Information and training for teachers and short films featuring Welsh artists and designers providing careers advice themselves.
Working in partnership with Chepstow Museum and the University of the West of England, and artist Eva Sajovic, Hidden Presence invited participants from schools and community groups in Monmouthshire, Cardiff and Neath to produce artwork for exhibition, and an interactive online platform, inspired by the life of Nathaniel Wells.
Nathaniel Wells was the son of a slave owner and enslaved woman, who through an extraordinary series of events progressed from the sugar plantations of the West Indies to a position of high social standing and wealth in 19th Century Britain. Taking his life as inspiration, and the complex moral issues that surrounded it, the project creatively challenges the notion that forced labour and the global exploitation of people is confined to our history, rather than something that continues to effect everyday life here in Wales.
The project worked with children and vulnerable young people living in South East Wales using photography and digital media as a means to explore pupils’ understanding about how history and slavery has built the landscape around them, and shaped the society they recognise.
Artists as Learners was a project run in partnership with engage and the Prince’s Trust Fairbridge Centre. Ffotogallery worked with two emerging artists to develop their socially engaged practice, by placing them with an experienced artist mentor. They worked with a group of young people from the Prince’s Trust over a three day period in July, which culminated in an exhibition and opening at Turner House. More information can be found on the project blog.
An online project accompanying Ffotogallery’s show Bedazzled – A Welshman in New York especially commissioned by Dylan Thomas 100 Festival and Cardiff Contemporary. Bedazzled celebrates the special relationship Dylan Thomas had with the United States, New York in particular, and the enduring influence of his life and work on both sides of the Atlantic. In a series of life performances in New Quay and Cardiff during Autumn 2014, audience members were transported back to 1950s world of bohemian New York. The web project simultaneously re-imagines Dylan Thomas’s favourite bar The White Horse Tavern, providing a glimpse into the poet’s life in New York, and explores the many sides to his character. The website experience hosts specially commissioned video interviews with Dylan Thomas’ New York contemporaries as well as a comprehensive archive of Dylan Thomas audio recordings.
As part of the project we invited Welsh schools to take part in a crowdsourced art project “The People’s Dylan Thomas”. Pupils’ artworks were transformed into a digital portrait to celebrate Dylan Thomas’s 100th birthday.
As part of the Tom Wood Landscapes exhibition, the education team invited members of the public to share their own photographic family archive. The photographs people brought in were scanned and printed, and became part of a wider discussion around the rules and social coding of the family album. In addition there were three workshops held around creating online photobooks, working with artists Faye Chamberlin and Jo Sutton.
As part of the Historic Photography exhibition at the National Museum, the Ffotogallery Education team and photographer Michal Iwanowski developed a range of activities to explore techniques and trends of Victorian photography.
Families joined us in painting in light, had their group portrait taken in a pop up portrait studio, and learned techniques for hand colouring.
In collaboration with engage and artist Heloise Godfrey Talbot, Ffotogallery worked with a group of young people at Bespoke Education. Bespoke Education works with young people not in mainstream education, in a safe and nurturing environment, with a high number of staff to pupil ratios.
The group worked with Godfrey Tablot over a ten week period, to produce a public exhibition, and an audio piece which can be heard below. The young people also worked towards an Arts Award, a nationally recognised qualification in the arts.
The project was part of the Momentum Project, funded by Arts Council Wales and in partnership with engage Cymru.
In three sessions, we asked pupils in schools in Swansea to make 3 minute movies using iPads. Considering the importance of moving image in all forms of broadcast from cinema to YouTube, the children combined sound design, image and text, to generate short films which used the language of film-making to express their personal stories.
Using references from early 20th century cinema, early horror films, surrealism, contemporary animation, comics and gaming culture, these future media and film students are gaining the skills to join a new wave of cross-platform media producers, making content for social media and broadcasters.
The Children of Radnor Road primary school make their thoughts about today’s politics clear in their brilliant poem and animation.
A Mini Revolution! from Ffotogallery on Vimeo.
The film was made by Ffotogallery working with poet Rosey Brown, & Radnor Primary School in partnership with A2 Connect: Arts And Education Network Central South as part of the Tidy! 2017 project.
For more information about this project and A2 Connect please go to A2connect.org
Tidy! is a multi arts project for KS1 and KS2, that encourages children to engage with questions surrounding the environment, sustainable living and our everyday lives – how can we create a tidy playground, a tidy school, a tidy town and a tidy planet? Questions are used as a stimulus to create poetry, music and visual art.
Year 1 pupils age 5, explored simple photography, animation and edible art to illustrate their poem on friendship, community, and healthy eating.
The film was made by Ffotogallery working with Radnor Primary School in partnership with A2 Connect: Arts And Education Network Central South as part of the Tidy! 2017 project.
Inspired by the work of Lee Karen Stow for the ‘Women, war and peace’ exhibition, and linked to the commemorations for the WW1, students from six secondary schools were asked to look at the ways in which people in Wales has responded to war and searched for peace and in the last 100 years. The students were produced short films or digital stories, from history (the war effort, conscientious objection to military recruitment) to current affairs (women’s rights, the refugee crisis). The students worked closely with Ffotogallery tutor Michal Iwanowski and Wales for Peace Learning Coordinator Jane Harries, exercising their research skills, image making skills, and finally editing skills. In total, 23 diverse and exciting films have been produced, showcasing the students’ creative and often innovative approach to their chosen topics.
These films will be kept permanently on the Wales for Peace ‘peace map’, and will form the basis of the Wales for Peace/National Assembly schools conference in September.
A comprehensive guide to producing your own documentary project.
Photographer Lee Stow, in association with Wales For Peace and Ffotogallery, discusses her experiences from working on ‘Poppies: Women, War, and Peace,’ and shares advice for young photographers who plan to develop a strong and coherent documentary project. Lee’s insights and tips give professional context to our step-by-step practical guide and video.
“Poppies” A comprehensive guide to producing your own documentary project. from Diffusion Festival on Vimeo.
An audio guide and sound piece. Mike Perry talks about his work, the Welsh landscape, and the complex issues which surround it, against a backdrop of sound collected and performed in the environment by composer Matthew Lovett.
Diffusion 2015’s chosen theme is Looking for America, a cross-disciplinary investigation of the status and meaning of the ‘American Dream’ in relation to experience in Wales, contemporary America and the rest of the world.
Taking place in venues across Cardiff and beyond, the festival sees a month long programme of exhibitions, interventions, screenings, performances, events and celebrations in both physical and virtual spaces and places. The festival will use both traditional and new media to create a strong visual presence across existing venues and found spaces.
Diffusion 2017 looks at ‘revolution’ in its widest context, investigating moments of social change, movements around freedom of expression, the pursuit of utopias, human rights and identity. Through the prism of photography and lens-based media, the festival will examine dramatic and wide-reaching changes over the last hundred years to the way we live – technological, political, social and cultural.
Diffusion and Ffotogallery’s Director, David Drake, explains why he chose the theme:
“At a time of immense global change, fear and uncertainty, I felt it was important for Diffusion 2017 to look at cultural and societal change more broadly, to explore new ideas and new ways of doing things, especially those which offer a challenge to the established order. To show how risk and experimentation, collaboration and collective action, how speaking up for what one believes in and acting on it, can bring about positive transformation, be a force for good rather than destructive ends”.
Join us on the first Tuesday of the month / exhibition in our beautiful gallery for a friendly chat over a hot cuppa and some cake. We will be open between 11am-1pm with staff on hand to greet you and tell you more about the exhibitions on show.
We will be delighted to see you and to chat over a cuppa and some cake.
Between 1960 and 1966 John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins captured the vibrancy of discontent and the emerging counter-culture in Britain, which was expressed through activism, poetic expression and art. This exhibition for Diffusion brings together a selection of images never seen before from the photographers archive alongside others included in the very few public exhibitions of his work to date. Captured here is the historic poetry convention at The Albert Hall in 1965, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King’s first visits to London, Committee of 100 and CND marches, and early anti-racist and pro-Civil Rights demonstrations which illustrate the power of popular protest.
Also on display in the exhibition are materials relating to his involvement in various counter-cultural manifestations such as International Times, and his ‘prison letters’ from 1967 when he was unjustly jailed for cannabis possession. Though the suspected real reason for this was his influential anti-establishment position that was gaining ground in the projects he was involved in.
Marcelo Brodsky | 1968 – the fire of ideas
Marcelo Brodsky is an Argentine artist and human rights activist, working with images and documents of specific events to investigate broader social, political and historical issues. In 1968 – the Fire of Ideas Brodsky features archival images of student and worker demonstrations around the world, carefully annotated by hand in order to deconstruct what lay behind worldwide social turbulence in the late 1960s. Images of anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in London and Tokyo sit alongside protests in Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico, Prague and San Paolo against military regimes and oppressive government structures. For decades, Brodsky owned and directed a photo agency with offices throughout Latin America. His sophisticated understanding of picture editing, of how they are sequenced changes the way audiences read images, enables him to use text and graphical devices in association with each image to shift the viewer’s perspective and to reveal new layers of meaning.
As part of Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography 2017, Ffotogallery is delighted to present the exhibition A Million Mutinies Later – India at 70, in partnership with the Nazar Foundation/Delhi Photo Festival for UK-India Year of Culture 2017
The future is always to an extent uncertain, but perhaps no more so than now. While globally we have come to recognise this moment through a shared sense of unpredictability, of being in a state of flux accompanied by fear, the collective discomfort arises not only from the current state of affairs but from how these conditions seem ungraspable. Wikileaks, protest marches, coups, and rebellions, have become constant realities in our lives wherever you may live. Yet clarity evades us as we try to comprehend these movements that have changed the very fabric of our global society.
As a modern nation and global economic player, India has been seen on the threshold over the last thirty years – with liberalisation making way for a constant barrage of reforms and revolts, spurred on by the massive changes brought on by the coming of information technology, urbanisation, and a renewed sense of nationalism. Featuring 14 contemporary Indian artists working in a variety of media, A Million Mutinies Later – India at 70 is an enquiry into not only the real India but the equally present and significant other, i.e. the imagined India, which has significantly evolved and transformed itself in the public sphere and the minds of Indians over the years.
The A Million Mutinies Later – India at 70 exhibition is part of Dreamtigers, a major new Ffotogallery project in which artists and cultural professionals from India and Wales collaborate around the making and presentation of new work that reflects how creativity, technology and a renewed sense of national identity are shaping the lives of future generations.
Land/Sea (Tir/Môr) is a major new solo exhibition by Wales-based artist Mike Perry, with an accompanying new Ffotogallery publication. Perry’s 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.
In his continuing series Wet Deserts, Perry is looking at the negative impact of monocultural land use and over-intensive cultivation, and the process of ‘re-wilding’ by which nature reclaims its biodiversity. Responding to George Monbiot’s description of the rural landscape as a ‘shadowland, a dim flattened relic of what there once was’, Perry believes that years of an ‘agribusiness dominated dogma’ combined with unsustainable agricultural policy need to be challenged by new thinking around what is good for the human spirit, biodiversity and the planet.
Alongside Wet Deserts, Land/Sea includes selected works from his Môr Plastigseries, in which he collects and forensically photographs plastic objects such as bottles, shoes and packaging washed up on the beaches of West Wales, inviting us to consider the environment impact of consumerism and the erosive power of nature.
At the Venice Biennale 2015, as part of the Azerbaijan pavilion Vita Vitale, Perry installed a cabinet of plastiglomerates, stones comprising intermingled melted plastic, sand, shells and other beach sediment he had collected. The objects appeared seamlessly integrated with our marine ecosystems, inviting us to consider the new materiality of our living realm and its technological capacities. Over the last five years, the artist has built up a large collection of these hybrid synthetic/natural objects and photographed them as single images often arranged in formal grids.
Inspired by 1960s/70s minimalism, Perry’s photography avoids the campaigning rhetoric of straight environmental documentary. Rather it poetically alludes to what we might be leaving for future generations, adding a contemporary narrative to minimalist abstraction. The artist explains:
“My intention is to reduce the objects to their pure formal states separating them for a moment from any meaning beyond their sculptural presence. I present the objects as grids or in line sequence emphasising the infinite choice offered by our consumer culture and to provide an aesthetic framework where colours and forms can work off each other”.
Land/Sea (Tir/Môr) is a Ffotogallery Touring Exhibition, curated by David Drake and Ben Borthwick.
An Impressions Gallery touring exhibition curated by Anne McNeill.
Marking the twenty-year anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty from British rule, The Queen, The Chairman and I is a fascinating journey into the entwined histories of China and the UK, traced through the family history of photographer Kurt Tong.
Described by Tong as a photographic ‘who do you think you are’, The Queen, The Chairman and I was made over four years across three continents. In this multi-stranded saga of love, hope, and tragedy, Tong uncovers family secrets and reveals the impact of political and economic forces on individual people. Drawing on Tong’s Chinese, Hong Kong and British connections, the exhibition combines new large-scale photographs, alongside heirloom photographs and rare colour film footage from the 1940s. Central to the exhibition is a contemporary Chinese teahouse installation where visitors are invited to drink tea, read Tong’s artist book, and share their own family stories.
Tong’s paternal grandfather was a deckhand who arrived in Hong Kong from Shanghai after the fall of the last imperial Chinese dynasty in 1911, lured by better job prospects in the relatively stable British colony. His mother’s family were landlords in Southern China, Tong believes that they ‘came to Hong Kong and probably escaped certain death at the hands of Mao’s advancing Communist armies.’
Tong grew up in Hong Kong, singing the British National Anthem throughout his school years. He came to the UK to continue his education only returning to Hong Kong in 2012.
Tong says, ‘I traced the history of my family in a bid to find out how two of the most influential people in history, Queen Victoria and Chairman Mao, affected my family. Giving equal importance to new photographs, found photographs and writing, this project reconnects me with the Hong Kong of the past, through the recollections of my extended family, humanising the political and social upheaval that took my family to Hong Kong and eventually to the United Kingdom.’
To launch an exciting new India-Wales collaboration marking the 70thanniversary of Indian Independence and the creation of Modern India, Ffotogallery is delighted to present the UK premiere of Kanu’s Gandhi, a new exhibition of rare and intimate photographs of Mahatma Gandhi by his grandnephew and personal chronicler, Kanu Gandhi.
Kanu Gandhi came to live with Mahatma Gandhi in the Sevagram Ashram and became his lifelong follower. Gandhi allowed Kanu to photograph him on the condition that no flash would be used and he would never be asked to pose. Though some of Kanu Gandhi’s images have been reproduced in books on Mahatma Gandhi, his work went largely uncredited and is now being presented for the first time in the UK as one body of work acknowledged for its historical and artistic importance. Culled from a long forgotten archive, the meticulously researched, painstakingly restored and exquisitely curated by Prashant Panjiar and Sanjeev Saith, Kanu’s Gandhi reveals rare and intimate photographs of the Mahatma during the last ten years of his life.
As David Drake, Ffotogallery’s Director, explains:
“Mahatma Gandhi’s influence on ordinary people and world leaders alike is immense, and his commitment to changing the world through non-violent means is a timely reminder for us all that there is always hope for a better life even in the darkest of times. Ffotogallery is honoured to be presenting this wonderful exhibition on the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence, and to acknowledge Wales’ special relationship with India. We were delighted to learn that the Hindu Council of Wales will be unveiling a new statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Cardiff later this year”
The exhibition is part of Dreamtigers, a year long project which brings together Ffotogallery, the national agency for photography in Wales, and the Nazar Foundation/Delhi Photo Festival. The project uses photography and lens-based media to examine both the ‘real India’ and the equally present and significant other – an Imagined India which in recent years has significantly evolved and transformed itself in the public sphere and in the minds of Indians. Dreamtigers is one of eleven projects in Wales supported by the British Council and Wales Arts International under the UK-India Year of Culture 2017.
A celebration of photography produced by our talented students in 2016 – 2017
Ffotogallery has believed in the power of photography for 40 years. Throughout 2018 we celebrate reaching our 40th birthday through a series of special exhibitions, projects and events. Some of these look back to 1978 and the development of the photography scene in Wales since then, others look forward to how the making and sharing of images will evolve in the next four decades. We also showcase the most exciting photographers and lens-based artists practising today, nationally and internationally.
Our programme of photography and digital media courses, offered in partnership with Cardiff School of Art and Design, are artist-led and take place in small groups in an enjoyable informal atmosphere. Students are encouraged to develop their ideas through a series of practical projects and illustrated talks exploring the impact of photography and digital media in a cultural and historical context. We provide a variety of modules, from Introduction to Photography: Beginner & Intermediate, to Photographing People, Language of Photography, Creative Web Design and Digital Video.
Ffotogallery also regularly works with arts and educational partners in Wales and internationally to ensure that artists, audiences and participants have a deep and wide-ranging engagement with contemporary photography, moving image and digital media practice.
Ffotogallery’s ambition for 2018 is to create a world-class centre for photography and digital media in the heart of Cardiff, Wales’ capital city. A truly 21st century centre rooted in its local context, offering creative opportunity for people from all walks of life, whilst being outwardly focused and global in its reach and impact.
Extraordinary, and at times shocking, still life images connecting the consumer and the act of consuming will go on show in Penarth in January. The exhibition features new work by Cardiff-based artist Dawn Woolley, and runs from 13 January to 3 February 2018 at Ffotogallery’s Turner House gallery. The exhibition preview is at 6pm on Friday 12 January and includes the artist in conversation with David Drake, Ffotogallery’s Director.
Woolley is a visual artist who uses photography, video, installation and performance. The exhibition provides a contemporary take on the traditional concept of still life painting, which grew in popularity in the 16th and 17thcenturies. Often featuring silver plates, ornate glassware and expensive foodstuffs such as shellfish and exotic fruit, still life paintings became a fashionable way for the Dutch and Flemish to illustrate their wealth.
As the artist states: “The term ‘consume’ describes the act of eating as well as purchasing a commodity. The still life table expresses this dual meaning because the objects on display are edible and indicate an individual’s social position.
I therefore approach the still life table as a portrait of a particular type of consumer. This allows me to view food in a still life as an expression of a relation between an individual and consumer society, and a symbol of the effect commodity consumption has on the consumer’s body.”
Consumed: Stilled Lives is part of a year long series of special exhibitions, projects and events celebrating Ffotogallery 40th anniversary.
Ffotogallery is delighted to present a vibrant new exhibition of photographs, costumes and video exploring the significance of carnival arts in shaping community identity in the United Kingdom, Africa and the Caribbean. A special launch event takes place at 6pm on Thursday 19 October at Ffotogallery at the Angel, Castle Street, Cardiff, and the exhibition runs for a week.
Timed to coincide with Black History Month, the exhibition marks the culmination of the Route to Roots project, which brought together artists and critical thinkers working in diverse art forms such as music, fine arts, theatre, dance, crochet, masquerade and carnival for a 7-day residency culminating in a public performance installation at the Butetown Carnival and the Hub Festival in Cardiff.
Route to Roots grew out of extensive research by Cardiff-based artist Adeola Dewis on how Carnival is a performance of re-presentation, combining cultural heritage and stories of historical, philosophical, spiritual significance from the African diasporic experience. The idea was to show how these stories and traditions can be shared through costume, music and dance in a public space.
As Adeola Dewis explains:
“This project was conceived as part of my response to the publicity of violence and killings by the police of mostly black men (and women) and the Black Lives Matter movement that followed. I asked the question: what is that thing that connects us?
In this project I was thinking about the ways in which we as diaspora people intersect. Interested in where and how we find and celebrate and highlight our common ground, our power, our voice, our magic. I use magic to refer to when energy comes together to work, to produce a positive action and set of circumstances”.
A special Route to Roots publication, published by Ffotogallery, accompanies the exhibition and will be available to schools, colleges and community groups.
The Route to Roots project was initiated by Adeola Dewis in partnership with Ffotogallery and funded by Arts Council Wales.
2018 marks Ffotogallery’s 40th anniversary, and as the national agency for photography and lens-based media in Wales, we celebrate reaching that milestone through a series of special exhibitions, projects and events.
At Turner House in March, Ffotogallery presents Zeitgeist, featuring work by ten emerging artists from five continents, including Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2017 winner César Dezfuli’s Passengers, striking portraits of migrants rescued from a rubber boat drifting in the Mediterranean Sea. Marta Mak’s Value explores how like alchemy we can create new value out of plastic packaging and other discarded products, transforming waste into a socially useful resource. One hundred years after the 1917 revolution, Alexander Anufriev’s Russia Close-Up examines political apathy in modern Russia and how censorship and propaganda fuels unhealthy nationalism. Medhi Bahmed’s Entre-Deux (Interval) uncovers the discomfort Muslim and Arab refugees and immigrants feel in the light of recent terror attacks, and the rise of hate crime and right wing populism in Europe.
Zeitgeist offers a selection of work submitted in response to Diffusion 2017’s global Open Call. In different ways, the artists capture the spirit of our times, highlighting what is going on, offering new insights and challenging the status quo. With our various news feeds latterly dominated by Brexit, Trump, climate change, poverty, religious intolerance, the migrant and refugee crisis, border control and gentrification, Zeitgeist interrogates what this all means for the individual and society moving forward.
Participating artists include:
Alexander Anufriev, Blazej Marczak, César Dezfuli, Demetris Koilalous, Hiro Tanaka, James A. Hudson, Marta Mak, Mehdi Bahmed, Phil Hatcher-Moore, and Verena Prenner
In September 1978, the first gallery in Wales dedicated to photography opened in Charles Street, Cardiff, under the name Yr Oriel Ffotograffeg. Changing its name to Ffotogallery in 1981, the organisation continues to thrive forty years on and plans to open new city centre premises in Cardiff in its birthday month of September 2018.
Chronicle is a new exhibition that draws on archival and contemporary material to tell the story of how Ffotogallery developed over those forty years, against the backdrop of changes in the nature and role of photography in society and the rise of digital culture. The exhibition will show how Ffotogallery gave early exposure for photographers and artists such as Martin Parr, Paul Graham, Helen Sear and Bedwyr Williams who went on to enjoy international success. It will document Ffotogallery’s longstanding focus on the South Wales Valleys through a series of commissions and exhibitions documenting the Valleys in various aspects during a period of rapid transition. Chronicle will also celebrate Ffotogallery’s international engagement, through publications and touring exhibitions, the European Prospects initiative, Wales in Venice 2015, the Dreamtigers India-Wales project, and three editions of the biennial Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography.
Since its inception 40 years ago, Ffotogallery has been at the forefront of developing a contemporary photographic culture in Wales through our commissioning and presentation of new work in exhibitions and at international festivals and events, through extensive print and online publishing, our support for emerging photographic and lens-based artists, and our pioneering education and outreach work that offers opportunities for creative participation for a wide cross-section of the community.
Chronicle sets the scene for the next phase of Ffotogallery’s work, in which a new generation of photographers and lens-based artists will emerge at a time when we increasingly receive and present creative content across both physical and virtual platforms. With so many images shared online, will there still be a demand for art galleries and traditional exhibitions? If so, what work will be presented in which kind of spaces? What skills do photographers and artists need to build a successful career? How can Wales become more globally connected through photography and digital media? These questions and more will be addressed through a series of talks, workshops and events accompanying the Chronicle exhibition.
At the Chronicle exhibition preview on Thursday 3 May 2018, David Drake will reveal Ffotogallery’s plans for its new city centre base, and launch the 40th anniversary fundraising campaign for fit out and development of this new international centre for photography in the heart of Cardiff.