With plenty going on in the art world this year, CJ Wagstaff presents a bumper roundup of news and exhibitions coming up in Wales, starting with the Wales Millennium Centre’s cutting-edge VR space and ending on a sobering look at what National Museum Cardiff’s new Pay What You Can scheme means for the future of art accessibility.
Forthcoming from BOCS
Now in its third year of operation, the Wales Millennium Centre’s purpose-made space for immersive storytelling BOCS – suitable for children aged 10 and up, and fully wheelchair accessible – boasts a diverse programme of globally relevant experiences for the year ahead.
From Wed 1-Sun 19 May, visitors to BOCS can step into the world of Empereur, a free virtual reality experience inviting audiences into the mind of a father suffering from a language comprehension disorder. This surreal tale delves into memory and familial relationships to uncover a personal history transcending the spoken word.
Later in the year, the WMC welcomes Vision3’s Invisible Ocean to the space. From Sat 27 July-Sun 8 Sept, patrons can submerge themselves in this free series of shared interactive exhibits which engage with urgent ecological crises. Drop In The Ocean and Critical Distance use multiple visual technologies to bring viewers face-to-face with the salient threats facing marine ecosystems. Through the eyes of key oceanic species, audiences are empowered to look to their daily deeds to learn how to protect the earth’s last true wilderness. Viewers are also encouraged to engage with Interactive Oceans, a tactile and educational installation which spans the wider WMC building, including a mobile phone scavenger hunt and interactive screens.
Admission: FREE. Info: here
Making Waves: 200 Years Of The RNLI
In the year of its second centenary, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution pays homage to its long and illustrious history in an exhibition forthcoming with Amgueddfa Cymru. Available to view at Swansea’s National Waterfront Museum from Sat 22 June until next March, Making Waves looks to honour the organisation’s huge impact on coastal safety in the UK and Ireland, with particular focus on the design contributions of Atlantic College in Llantwit Major.
From the launch of its first wooden oar-powered vessel to the introduction of the inland hovercraft, the charity has been at the forefront of lifesaving policy and technology since its inception by Sir William Hillary in 1824. Now, 200 years later, the RNLI reveals how it earned its status as a household name and made 146,000 rescues in the process. With more than 9,000 volunteers working across its 238 lifeboat stations, this exhibition highlights the human history of labour and loss that has made it all possible.
Admission: FREE. Info: here
Teulu: A Family Affair
Aberystwyth Arts Centre has become the first in a new network of Welsh galleries with accessibility at their heart. Part of the ‘programme for government’ commitments drawn up by Welsh Government for the period up to 2026, the dispersed model brings art into local communities and professes to place decision-making in the hands of the Welsh public.
This inaugural exhibition – titled Teulu (Welsh for ‘family’) and running until Sun 23 June – sees four families from Ceredigion trying their hand at co-curating a major new show in the Centre’s gallery. The project, a collaboration between the Arts Council Of Wales, Amgueddfa Cymru and the National Library Of Wales, aims to break down access barriers for Welsh families by placing them at the nucleus of operations.
Works loaned from the national collection have been chosen alongside new work created by the families themselves, with artists such as Pablo Picasso, Ceri Richards and Mary Lloyd Jones featured in the display. Eight other galleries across Wales are to collaborate in the project, with initiatives forthcoming from Glynn Vivian Art Gallery in Swansea, Mostyn in Llandudno, Newport Museum, Oriel Davies in Newtown, Oriel Myrddin in Carmarthen, Oriel Plas Glyn-Y-Weddw in Pwllheli, Ruthin Craft Centre and Storiel in Bangor.
Admission: FREE. Info: here
Pay What You Can at National Museum Cardiff
In a move away from its celebrated free admission policy, Amgueddfa Cymru has recently begun implementing a ‘pay what you can’ scheme for entry to certain exhibitions. The sliding scale formula is being piloted with Art Of The Selfie, which runs in National Museum Cardiff until next January: patrons are charged a minimum fee of £1 to view its retrospective of the self-portrait, which boasts high-profile works from the national collection as well as a noteworthy loan of Van Gogh’s Portrait Of The Artist (1887) from Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
With mounting financial tension facing the arts and culture sectors in Wales – exacerbated by 2022 Department For Work & Pensions data revealing that income poverty affects 21% of people in the country – institutions are being encouraged by Welsh Government to conceive new strategies of independently bolstering their incomes. Deputy Culture Minister Dawn Bowden has indicated that admission charges may become a necessary measure to ensure the survival of these attractions, but will the potential new fees prove fit for purpose – and how secure will this leave the future of the arts in Wales?
Info: here
words CJ WAGSTAFF
