HOLD AGE // Workshop
What do we want to carry? What is too heavy to bring? Aging is a conversation and negotiation between ourselves and the worlds we find ourselves in. Social safety nets often require you to be social - the care we can provide for others is often the care we receive in return.
Join artist Rhys Slade-Jones as they upend The Valleys archive. Through queer performance practice, Rhys invites workshop participants to build characters from the archive and explore how these personas can be a method of understanding our communities and what we want from them as we age.
Participants are invited and encouraged to bring along an object/s that sustains them.
This workshop is in conjunction with the LGBTQIA+ commission that was awarded to Rhys Slade-Jones in 2025, supported by the National Lottery Heritage fund.
About the commission:
This commission was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of Ffotogallery’s ongoing archive project. Research into the Ffotogallery archive revealed a lack of diversity, with communities such as queer and disabled people underrepresented in the collection.
To address this, Ffotogallery commissioned two artists—one LGBTQIA+, one disabled—to explore the archive and create new work in response. The resulting pieces will be acquired into the collection, expanding and diversifying the archive to better reflect Ffotogallery’s values and mission.
Following an open call, Rhys Slade-Jones was selected for the LGBTQIA+ artist commission, and Durre Shahwar selected for the Disabled artist commission.
.Image by ©Emma Faye-Mae Tsui