Category Archives: The City

The Arts, The City, Whats on

Two Cardiffs Caught on Camera: Images of a City, Stories of its People

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We Are Cardiff photographer Jon Pountney publishes ‘Cardiff before Cardiff’

Cardiff Before Cardiff book cover jon pountney

During the 1970s and early ’80s, hundreds of prints and negatives of Cardiff were taken by the photographer Keith S. Robertson.

These were left forgotten in drawers in an artist’s studio in the city, with the photographer being told that his years of work had been burned and destroyed.

However, exactly two years ago the photographs were finally recovered by another photographer, Jon Pountney, who realised their value immediately.

The result of his restorative work on the photographs, and the reaction generated from the people portrayed or who have seen them, is published this week by Y Lolfa in a new book called Cardiff before Cardiff.

Jon Pountney
Jon Pountney

“I discovered the prints and negatives whilst renovating Warwick Hall, a building in the Gabalfa area of Cardiff, and was instantly struck by the quality of the prints,” explains Jon Pountney.

“The pictures were amazing; ordinary people going about their day, looking as if they could step off the page… What was very striking was the rich vein of community, smiles, winks and laughter.

“A couple of these pictures were stamped ‘Keith S. Robertson’, but that was all. So I created a new blog, called Cardiff before Cardiff, and shared a few photos on the website in an effort to learn more about this photographer. They were seen by a journalist, who subsequently put a number of the prints in a newspaper. The response was immense, and resulted in me being able to reunite Keith with his photographs once more.”

In Cardiff before Cardiff, Robertson’s powerful black and white images show the people and streets of Splott and other areas of Cardiff during the 1970s and the early ’80s, and Pountney’s work revisits some of those same areas today, showing how little has changed, and vice versa.

“Ever since I found those photos, I’ve been shooting Cardiff in a response to Keith’s work,” adds Jon. “It’s inspired me to step out into the streets of Cardiff and make the work I’ve always wanted to do. In this new book, my pictures appear side by side with Keith’s, and I couldn’t be prouder.”

Alun Gibbard
Alun Gibbard

The book’s author, Alun Gibbard says, “What has breathed life into Cardiff before Cardiff is the response of the city’s people. On seeing the black and white images in the press, on the blog and Facebook, people began to respond. Someone would recognise themselves in a photograph, or their father, mother or child. Some saw photographs of their family for the first time.”

Jon Pountney and Alun Gibbard will be signing copies of Cardiff before Cardiff in the city’s WHSmith on Thursday, 20th of December between 4 and 5pm. YourCardiff has also published an interview with Jon today.

 

 

 

***

The City

#Celebrate and #change #myhighstreet – community activism around the UK

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A quick reminder about our involvement with this initiative…

The goal of We Are Cardiff has always been celebrating the city of Cardiff through the stories of people who live here. Recently our (award winning – sorry, had to drop that in) blog was asked to be part of a campaign being launched by n0tice, which is a web platform that brings together hyperlocal news and events from various sites into one centralised place. The campaign that’s being launched is celebrating the British high street and its function in bringing together local communities across the UK.

N0tice’s celebrate and change the highstreet campaign is being launched in four different UK locations – Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Brighton. Revitalising city and town centre high streets as community hubs is an aspect of urban regeneration that we think is really important, and we’re delighted and really excited that n0tice have asked us to partner with them in promoting this new initiative here in the capital of Wales.

So – what does this mean for you guys reading this? Well, we want YOU GUYS to take photographs of what you want to celebrate or change about your local high street. You can tweet them with the hashtags #celebrate or #change and the hashtag #myhighstreet, and the n0tice guys are going to be putting together a hub of all the online activity, which you can see at http://highstreet.n0tice.com.

But it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to do ALL the work, right? So you can see below for two photographs of things that we’ve picked out as being things to celebrate and change.

CELEBRATE:
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The people. So many people. This photograph was taken at Mardi Gras this year, and it was the sense of joy and fun that this event created that we think is so key for bringing people together. Especially considering this was an event celebrating the diversity of communities in Wales. So this is our thing we want to celebrate about the city that we live in – the people. Not surprising I suppose when you consider what We Are Cardiff is about…

CHANGE

It’s a fairly obvious thing to point out about most urban centres these days, but there are increasingly more and more abandoned and empty buildings in these locations. It’s particularly sad when the buildings are old or have some sense of history behind them. Cardiff Bay has more than its fair share of these kinds of buildings (you don’t have to wander far from the bright sparkly lights of Mermaid Quay to find them either) – gorgeous old buildings that have been left empty, some for decades. The Coal Exchange, the Point, the Vaults (although these buidlings are being used sporadically). This photograph captures two things – another lovely old building that’s been left empty, but also another example of one of the 12 pubs that’s been closing (on average) per week over the past few years.

So this is the question we put to you: what are the things you would like to #change or #celebrate on #myhighstreet? Tweet us your pictures with the hashtags and take part in this campaign that’s running over October and November 2012!

The People, Whats on

The We Are Cardiff stage at Swn Festival 2012: presenting Ratatosk

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This year, we’re curating a stage at this year’s Cardiff-based musical cornucopia – SWN FESTIVAL! In the run up to the festival, we’re going to be running short profiles on each of the lovely people performing on our stage. Today, we’d like to introduce you to the lovely Rhodri Viney – aka, Ratatosk!

photo by simon ayre

Q. You’re playing the WAC stage at Swn this year! Can you describe your music / your sound please? What can people expect?
A. A guy doing his sad sad quasi-historical faux-dystopian musical thing, with guitars, harmonium, saw, pedal steel and whatever else is within reach. Expect some looping of instruments, and miserablist folk songs about shipwrecked sailors and the like.

Q. Describe the music scene in Cardiff for us
A. Erm, having a young son means my finger isn’t exactly on the pulse anymore, so my answer would probably be inaccurate!

Q. Any local bands/artists/producers you’d tip for people to see?
A. Firstly, I’m playing in the In Chapters band on the friday night – In Chapters is always tremendous fun and highly unpredictable, so I’d recommend that. No Thee No Ess have been sounding tremendous lately, Zervas and Pepper, Among Brothers, Islet and Sweet Baboo are always good to see too. I’m sure some of the young types I’ve not seen or heard of before are probably good too – so just go and see some music.

Q. What’s your favourite thing to do in Cardiff? (music related or otherwise)
A. Drinking / film watching in Chapter – record shopping in Spillers – eating copious amounts of food from the Vegetarian Food Studio – Riverside market – haranguing the staff at Fresh baguettes before eating their phenomenal food – Garlands cafe…

Now I write them out, I’m surprised to see how many of my favourite things involve food… I must be getting older. And fatter.

Q. Have you ever played Swn Festival before? Have you got any good Swn memories? And… who are you most looking forward to seeing at Swn Festival this year?
A. Yes, I’ve played Swn quite a lot – I think my other band, Right Hand Left Hand have played four times, the highlight was a headline gig upstairs at the Model Inn on the sunday night – a packed, excitable venue, long queues to get in, and we played well – everything I’d want a gig to be! Though I mainly remember Alex from Islet being told off for crowd-surfing-walking on the ceiling.

Q. If people want to check out your music online, where can they do that?
A. A ton of pay-what-you-want-I-don’t-care downloads are available here: ratatosk.bandcamp.com/

The City

We Are Cardiff and N0tice – Celebrating the high street

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The goal of We Are Cardiff has always been celebrating the city of Cardiff through the stories of people who live here. Recently our (award winning – sorry, had to drop that in) blog was asked to be part of a campaign being launched by n0tice, which is a web platform that brings together hyperlocal news and events from various sites into one centralised place. The campaign that’s being launched is celebrating the British high street and its function in bringing together local communities across the UK.

N0tice’s celebrate and change the highstreet campaign is being launched in four different UK locations – Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, and Brighton. Revitalising city and town centre high streets as community hubs is an aspect of urban regeneration that we think is really important, and we’re delighted and really excited that n0tice have asked us to partner with them in promoting this new initiative here in the capital of Wales.

So – what does this mean for you guys reading this? Well, we want YOU GUYS to take photographs of what you want to celebrate or change about your local high street. You can tweet them with the hashtags #celebrate or #change and the hashtag #myhighstreet, and the n0tice guys are going to be putting together a hub of all the online activity, which you can see at http://highstreet.n0tice.com.

But it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to do ALL the work, right? So you can see below for two photographs of things that we’ve picked out as being things to celebrate and change.

CELEBRATE:

The people. So many people. This photograph was taken at Mardi Gras this year, and it was the sense of joy and fun that this event created that we think is so key for bringing people together. Especially considering this was an event celebrating the diversity of communities in Wales. So this is our thing we want to celebrate about the city that we live in – the people. Not surprising I suppose when you consider what We Are Cardiff is about…

CHANGE

It’s a fairly obvious thing to point out about most urban centres these days, but there are increasingly more and more abandoned and empty buildings in these locations. It’s particularly sad when the buildings are old or have some sense of history behind them. Cardiff Bay has more than its fair share of these kinds of buildings (you don’t have to wander far from the bright sparkly lights of Mermaid Quay to find them either) – gorgeous old buildings that have been left empty, some for decades. The Coal Exchange, the Point, the Vaults (although these buidlings are being used sporadically). This photograph captures two things – another lovely old building that’s been left empty, but also another example of one of the 12 pubs that’s been closing (on average) per week over the past few years.

So this is the question we put to you: what are the things you would like to #change or #celebrate on #myhighstreet? Tweet us your pictures with the hashtags and take part in this campaign that’s running over October 2012!

The People, Whats on

The We Are Cardiff stage at Swn Festival 2012: presenting Mab Jones

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Not sure if we mentioned it or not, but we’re curating a stage at this year’s Cardiff-based musical cornucopia – SWN FESTIVAL! In the run up to the festival, we’re going to be running short profiles on each of the lovely people performing on our stage. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Madame Mab Jones. Mab has been involved with We Are Cardiff before – you can read her story here.

Q. You’re performing on the WAC stage at Swn this year! Can you describe yourself as a performer? What can people expect?
A. I’m a modern-day Pam Ayres with a penchant for the political; a naughty-but-nice Welsh ‘lady’ who enjoysentertaining with raw, rude, ribald rhyme. I’ve performed at the Comedy Store, Leicester Comedy Festival, in the USA, Japan, on BBC Radio 4, at Latitude, Green Man, and many, many more. People can expect “delightful comic verse, articulate and imaginative” (Three Weeks, Edinburgh Fringe review).

Q. Describe the spoken word scene in Cardiff for us
A. It’s pretty good, with regular nights at Tommy’s Bar and National Theatre Wales’s Word 4 Word. There are some cool events at Gremlin Alley, the squat on City Road. And I also organise the odd event through my spoken word collective Jam Bones.

Q. Any local spoken word artists you’d tip for people to see?
A. My favourite Cardiff spoken word artists are Jack Pascoe, Liam Johnson, Nicholas Whitehead, Will Ford, and Steven Kenward.

Q. What’s your favourite thing to do in Cardiff?
A. My favourite thing is trying different types of world food – there are lots of good eateries in the Diff these days.

Q. Give us your lowdown on Swn Festival
A. I’ve been to bits of the festival before, and seen lots of great bands. I think this time I’m mostly looking forward to seeing The Lovely Eggs, who I missed in Cardiff earlier in the year.

Q. If people want to check out your stuff online, where can they do that?
A. They can look at my website, www.mabjones.com. Or else they can google me and see a lot of things I never approved and don’t like come up *sigh* **wink**.

Whats on

Roath Stories at Made In Roath Festival, 2012

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We Are Cardiff: Open House mixed media exhibition at Made In Roath Festival
Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 October, 11am – 4pm
13 Boverton Street, Roath, Cardiff

We Are Cardiff (Best Blog in Wales 2012!) is a community project that invites residents of the city to tell their stories of living in the city. This year at Made in Roath, We Are Cardiff will present an exhibition of Roath stories and portrait photography in the intimate setting of a family home! Come by and meet the characters who make up this vibrant part of the capital of Wales.

Facebook event

designed by Adam Chard

Made In Roath 2012

Download the Made In Roath 2012 brochure

Whats on

ProjectCardiff Exhibition Preview invitation, Monday 15 October 2012

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Earlier this year, ProjectCardiff announced their intention to create a portrait series of 50 people who make a contribution to the creative community of Wales’ capital city. The photographs were taken by Lann Niziblian, who is one of We Are Cardiff’s most recently acquired photographers! We Are Cardiffite Helia was asked to sit for a portrait, and the full series of photographs will be on display in the Senedd in Cardiff Bay.

An Exhibition of Photographs by Lann Niziblian

Kindly sponsored by Julie Morgan AM

Monday 15 October 2012, 18:00-20:00*
Oriel, The Senedd, Pierhead Street, Cardiff, CF99 1NA

Project Cardiff would like to invite you to attend our exhibition opening at the Senedd on Monday the 15 October. The exhibition continues until the 2 November 2012.

Curated by Spike Dennis.

See the full list of ProjectCardiff’s inaugural portrait participants

The People, Whats on

The We Are Cardiff stage at Swn Festival: presenting Ffred Jones

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Not sure if we mentioned it or not, but we’re curating a stage at this year’s musical orgasmia – SWN FESTIVAL! In the run up to the festival, we’re going to be running short profiles on each of the lovely people performing on our stage. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Mister Ffred Jones.

Q. Can you describe yourself as a performer? What can people expect?
A. Ummm people can expect some serious finger picking! Plus a lot more bluegrass inspired banjo tunes, gonna be promoting some of my new material, really excited!

Q. Describe the music scene in Cardiff for us
A. The scene in Cardiff is pretty good and vibrant, especially when you consider the economic climate, people aren’t coming out so much but it’s not stopping people playing which is pretty cool.

Q. What’s your favourite thing to do in Cardiff?
A. Favorite thing to do in Cardiff, hit New York deli for seriously killer sandwich after sound check.

Q. Give us the lowdown on Swn Festival for you.
A. I’ve actually performed at SWN a few times over the years. I opened for Benjamin Francis Leftwich last year which was awesome! Then I went and met Ben Howard after his set in Clwb Ifor Bach, that was pretty cool. Really looking forward to Among Brothers, awesome band.

Q. If people want to check out your stuff online, where can they do that?
A. People can find me at www.ffredjones.co.uk hopefully doing a website revamp soon, with loads new media and loads of free music!

The People, Whats on

The We Are Cardiff stage at Swn Festival 2012: presenting Laurence Made Me Cry

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Not sure if we mentioned it or not, (have we? HAVE WE?) but we’re curating a stage at this year’s Cardiff-based musical cornucopia – SWN FESTIVAL! In the run up to the festival, we’re going to be running short profiles on each of the lovely people performing on our stage. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Laurence Made Me Cry (aka Jo Whitby). Jo has been involved with We Are Cardiff before (she’s like our resident songstress!) – and you can read the entry she wrote for the site here.

Q. You’re playing the We Are Cardiff stage this year! Can you describe your music / your sound please? What can people expect?
A. I’m very excited to play the We Are Cardiff stage, so great to be a part of it. My music has developed into something quite different in recent months. The EP I released last year was pretty much all acoustic based lo-fi folk music but since working on my new album I’ve started to explore more of my musical influences. I guess you could call it electonica-folk-pop? Something like that! My performance will still be very much acoustic based but I will definitely mix in a few of the more electronic tracks. That’s what laptops are for!

Q. Describe the music scene in Cardiff for us
A. As Cardiff is a relatively small capital it’s quite easy to follow what’s going on in the music scene. There are plenty of venues hosting music events every day of the week so loads of opportunities to see the local bands and musicians. Most of the Cardiff-based acts and promoters are really friendly so it’s quite easy to build up a great network of folks you know you can rely on.

Q. Any local bands/artists/producers you’d tip for people to check out?
A. It goes without saying that you should all check out two of my album collaborators Alone and Dementio13 both of which create the most awesome electronica. For some folk loveliness I would definitely check out Horizon, Scriber and Albatross Archive. Then there’s Inc.A of course who are fab live.

Q. What’s your favourite thing to do in Cardiff? (music related or otherwise)
A. My favourite thing to do in Cardiff is to take a walk from my house, through Wellfield Road then up for a slow stroll around Roath Park making sure I come back via a coffee shop. Simple pleasures.

Q. Have you ever played Swn Festival before? Have you got any good Swn memories? And… who are you most looking forward to seeing at Swn Festival this year?
A. I’ve not played Swn before and this will be my first festival performance as a solo artist which is terrifying but also quite special. I’ve rarely been in a financial position to attend the festival and when I had the opportunity my body had the audacity to become sick. There are so many acts I want to see! My current ‘must see’ list includes Pulled Apart By Horses, Trwbador, Jewellers, Alone (if we’re not clashing) and Ratotosk. I’m really looking forward to making some new discoveries too!

Q. If people want to check out your stuff online, where can they do that?
A. You can find lots of info and music on my website: http://laurencemademecry.com or if you’d rather access all the sounds in one click: http://soundcloud.com/lmmcmusic

The City

Cardiff – on film!

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Well well. We’ve only gone and released the third trailer for our film: We Are Cardiff – Portrait of a City! Watch below:

Looking pretty nice, eh? Thanks to Sweet Baboo for letting us use his lovely music.

To follow the progress of our film, visit the Portrait of a City blog. We’re still looking for people to invest in the film! You can give us anything from £3 upwards – and you get great rewards like hugs, t-shirts and posters in return! Visit our film fundraising page for more information.

There have been a whole bunch of lovely film-related things about our fine city of Cardiff online recently. Some of these are older too. Here are some of the pick of the bunch:

I love watching music videos and short films and spotting Cardiff locations. What are your favourites? Have we missed any out? Leave us links to ones you liked watching and perhaps we’ll do another Cardiff on film roundup post soon…

The City, We Are Cardiff Productions

The Little Guide to Cardiff – redux

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*** 2017 UPDATE! NEW VERSION OF THE LITTLE GUIDE TO CARDIFF IS HERE! ***

As summer was over so ridiculously quickly, we’ve tarted up our Little Guide to Cardiff. This should last you til the end of the year! For residents, visitors, friends, and so on.

You can read it below, or download it straight from the We Are Cardiff Scribd page (it’s a PDF, 9MG).

Let us know your thoughts in the comments. What should we include for next time?

Whats on

We Are Cardiff at Swn Festival 2012

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Can it be true? Yes – that’s right – we’ve only gone and got ourselves a stage at this year’s Sŵn Festival! Sŵn is a multi-venue musical takeover that happens in Cardiff over four days every October. It’s always an absolute riot, and we’re chuffed to bits to be curating a stage this year. As We Are Cardiff is a community project, all our performers are Cardiff talent. We’ve got music, beatboxing, some spoken words, plus a series of short films being shown between the acts. And some comedy, if we can fit it in. AND a special We Are Cardiff photography exhibition, where photos and stories from the blog will be up on the walls for all to see!

Float your boat? Make sure you get your Sŵn Festival wristband now (you can order tickets from the Sŵn Festival website)

You should also check out the full festival line up for this year. It’s pretty amazing: Sŵn Festival line up

In the run up to the festival, we’ll be publishing profiles from each of our performers, plus more info on our stage nearer to the time. If you REALLY want to make sure you’re free, save yourself some time on Saturday afternoon between 3pm-10pm. We promise you’ll have a right old knees up!