Something unique is afoot at St Fagans this October. Fedor Tot chats to John Rea about his multimedia project Atgyfodi, which aims to bring the archives back to life.
For the uninitiated, can you tell us what Atgyfodi is?
Atgyfodi is a multimedia work which is based and inspired by St Fagans Museum and the National Museum Of Wales. We’ve created a two-part work that involves sound installation in the buildings for the first act, which includes the chapel, the Kennixton Farmhouse, the watermill and the school house. The second act is a musical performance that features the BBC National Orchestra Of Wales, with traditional Welsh instruments by Patrick Rimes and cinematography by Huw Talfryn Waters. The idea we have is to immerse the audience in their history through a multimedia piece of work – not merely a musical piece.
How did you go about exploring these archives? What’s the earliest thing you’ve used?
The archive is enormous and there are tens of thousands of hours of recordings. In the 1960s, archivists set out to record people around Wales and this was the main focus of my research. The recordings weren’t only of voices, there were also sounds: old clog-dancing, old Welsh instruments. The earliest recording I found is of a woman, who was born in 1850, singing a few traditional songs. It made me realise that the actual history goes back far beyond the recording, as these were songs that would’ve been taught to her when she was younger. I started to think of it as the recordings being snapshots of traditions and elements of history, which stretch back further than we’ll know. There were so many recordings, it was difficult to know where to begin and what to narrow down to. My plan was to think of the buildings, what they represent and then go from there; and slowly but surely, stories began to emerge of real people and what their lives were like in these buildings.
Have you got any more ideas to bring this archive to life?
It was impossible to include the majority of the recordings in the Atgyfodi project, therefore there are a few ideas that are coming together to shed light on a bigger portion of the archives. I’m really pleased to say that Radio Cymru are newly on board with the project and I am creating podcasts of the installation work; I liked the idea of the archives and the voices being heard by a wider audience. I’m very glad this radio project allows only the voices to speak and reach back out to the communities where they were from. I also recorded and captured the interior acoustics of the buildings, digitizing them, so that it creates an authentic feel for listeners and they can imagine being there, in the rooms, with the voices.
If you could recommend one place in Wales to a first-time visitor that’s not on the tourist maps, where would it be and why?
Kelly’s Records in Cardiff Market. I have a love of funk and soul music as I DJ a little, so that would definitely be somewhere I would recommend to someone with the same music taste.
Atgyfodi, National Museum Of History, St Fagans, Fri 19-Sun 21 Oct. Tickets: £19.50/£18.50. Info: 0300 1112333 / www.museum.wales
photos Huw Talfryn Waters