—Introduction

St Davids Hall

1 May – 31 May

Eva Bartussek, Holly Davey, Paul Duerinckx, John Paul Evans, Peter Finnemore, Muriel Gallan, Hamish Gane, Humberto Gatica, Anna Kurpaska, Ryan Moule, Timothy Nordhoff, Richard Page, Lāsma Poiša, Inger Birgitte Richenberg

Exploring themes of locality, community and Otherness, From common differences asks oblique questions of the place of ‘the local’ within a broad network of contemporary cultural relationships. Bringing together established artists and emerging talents in the field, this exhibition presents new photographic work produced within Wales and further afield, to create a multi-perspective dialogue that challenges the capacity of journalistic and art practices to photograph and represent crucial issues of the 21st century. The project uses as its departure point, a recognition of issues regarding Swansea and Cardiff as neighbouring cities. The exhibition will examine important cultural regional questions of identity, locality and distinctiveness.

A partnership project between Swansea Metropolitan University and St David’s Hall.

Image: Combustible, 2012 © Timothy Nordhoff

We have commissioned artist Laura Sorvala to create visual documentation of our platform debates, which are a series of free evening events, each dedicated to one of the Platform themes and led by prominent artists and thinkers. Click here to view a full screen PDF of Laura’s sketchnotes.

The first debate took place at Fire Island 8 May entitled “Everyone is a Photographer Now” and was led by Associated Press Photographer Matt Dunham.

Visit Platform to find out about our upcoming events and to vote and comment on the provocations.

“There is nothing left to photograph”

Wednesday 29 May, 6.30pm

Fire Island, 25 Westgate Street, Cardiff CF10 1DD

Free

BOOK NOW

A series of free evening events will be held in the city, each dedicated to one of the Platform themes and led by prominent artists and thinkers. There will be space for discussion and reflection in an informal setting.

Oriel Canfas

1 May – 31 May

Wait and See places black and white photosensitive paper and light – two fundamentals of photography – at the centre of its process. Early photographic paper is exposed in the exhibition rooms and through a subtle interplay with space and light, the chromatic transformation of the paper begins. According to its composition and the nature of its contact with light, the paper develops random colour patterns over time. To perceive the progressive saturation of the paper, the spectator is asked to be patient and to remain still for a few moments in order to observe a latent process, the meaning of which derives from the very act of being seen.

A Ffotogallery project funded by Pro Helvetia (Swiss Arts Council), Swiss Cultural Fund in Britain and Swisslos Culture Canton de Berne.

Image: Wait and See, 2012 © f&d cartier

Saturday 25 May, 11am – 5pm & Sunday 26 May, 10am – 5pm 

Stiwdio, Chapter / Free Admission

The publishing fair welcomes all to celebrate, explore and engage in a wealth of international contemporary book arts and print practice. On Saturday there will be a series of Q&A sessions with selected contributors and throughout the weekend will be various launches and signings.

Third Floor Gallery

4 May – 23 June

Urban Quilombo is a testimony of a place that no longer exists. Between 2009 and 2011, Sebastian Liste documented the community of Barreto, an abandoned chocolate factory in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. From 2003, dozens of families occupied the factory and transformed it into a home. Until then, these families lived in the dangerous streets of the city. Tired of the violence and despair, they came together to seize the deserted factory. They created a microcosm in which the problems of drugs, prostitution and violence could be tackled with the support of the community. In March 2011, the government evicted the families from the factory, in one of many attempts to clean up the visible poverty in the centre of Brazil’s cities.

Image: From Urban Quilombo, 2009 – 11 © Sebastian Liste

Sunday 26 May 2013, 11am – 5pm 

Cinema 1, Chapter

BOOK NOW

This event will open up creative dialogue and enquiry into documentary and art photography publishing today, with a lively programme of presentations and panel discussions. Bringing together photographers, publishers and other industry specialists, debate will centre around shifts in publishing as practice; the mechanisms of production and distribution; legacies, contexts and considering exhibitions of photobooks. Ken Grant will also be back by popular demand presenting new 5 minute Book Reviews.

Ticket price includes tea and coffee and a packed lunch.

Speakers: Ken Grant (University of South Wales), Harry Hardie (HERE Press), Gordon MacDonald (GOST Books), Christiane Monarchi (Chair), Rodrigo Orrantia (Lucid-ly), Emmanuelle Waeckerle (the bookRoom), Thijs groot Wassink (Wassink/Lundgren) and more TBA.

B O R T H is a film installation by the artist Gideon Koppel. It was filmed in the wild west Wales town of Borth – a curious and extraordinary place where the infinite horizon of the sea collides with a bricolage of architectures; where epic landscape is playfully juxtaposed with the intimacy of human gesture.

Following on from Koppel’s feature-length film Sleep Furiously – one of the most critically acclaimed British films of 2009 – B O R T H travels along the blurred borders between documentary and fiction, to create a powerful dream-like and sensory world.

The exhibition is showing 1 – 31 May 2013 at Chapter Studio.

For more video content visit Remote Access.

Tramshed

1 May – 31 May

The Photographs of Geoff Charles

Curated by Peter Finnemore and Russell Roberts

Between the 1930s and 1980s, Geoff Charles was an established photojournalist whose contribution to a variety of Welsh newspapers and magazines was extensive. Throughout the North and the Borders he documented the fabric of daily life as well as the traditions and modernisation of Wales. Accidents, fashion, farming, Eisteddfodau, civic openings, industry, cars, travel, protest and war figure in what constitutes a dense visual encounter with place and history.

The exhibition draws on the collection of the National Library of Wales to create new frames of reference for Charles’ press photographs. Removed from their original context as half-tone illustrations and from the collection that usually defines them, these images with their shift in scale and presentation can still be very direct statements about the world but also mysterious fragments of it. Drawing on the work of Raymond Williams whose concept of ‘a structure of feeling’ was first used in 1954, the exhibition reinforces the power of photography to convey a similar definition of lived experience and the quality of life at a particular time and place. Consisting of large-scale prints along with projections and film, the exhibition also explores the importance of intervention within collections to ensure that they remain fluid and open to revision.

The exhibition is presented by Ffotogallery in association with the National Library of Wales.

Image: Geoff Charles, Ellesmere Carnival, 4^th September, 1955. Courtesy of National Library of Wales.

Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

1 May – 29 May

Encore stages two complementary series of portraits of musicians in Blaenavon, a former mining town in the south Wales Valleys. Inspired by historic portraits in the National Museum Cardiff collection, Alicia Bruce’s photographs highlight the individuality of the sitters while retaining their identity as a collective. Both series were shot on stage in Blaenavon Workman’s Hall during Bruce’s residency as part of Ffotogallery’s recent Valleys commission. They depict distinct groups of performers from different generations who are tied together geographically and share a love of performance. By restaging compositions from celebrated paintings in the National Museum Cardiff, Bruce eloquently reconnects the Blaenavon musicians with a greater Welsh musical heritage.

A Ffotogallery project.

Image: Blaenavon Male Voice Choir, 2011 © Alicia Bruce