DIFFUSION FESTIVAL | EVENT PREVIEW
Various venues throughout Cardiff
Wed 1 May-Fri 31 May
Admission: free
words: Gareth Ludkin
Photography is familiar, safe and pervasive, it enters our lives on a daily basis (whether we’re aware of it or not), and as a result of advances in technology, it is also easy, everyday and attainable. Mobile phone photography continues to shape how we interact and view the world, and with the improving quality of high street cameras, professional quality photography is now widely available for enthusiasts and amateurs alike.
For David Drake, director of the National Photography Agency In Wales, the accessibility of photography is just one of the many reasons why an international photography festival is perfectly suited to Cardiff and South Wales more generally. “It’s a very powerful and flexible medium in terms of what it communicates about the world that we live in,” enthuses David. “I feel that people are able to engage with it because there is that familiarity. Sometimes people who feel a little uncomfortable about going into an art gallery will go to a photography exhibition as it feels less frightening to cross the threshold.”
It is out of this ethos and desire to break down any barriers between artist and audience that Diffusion, Cardiff’s inaugural international photography festival has materialised. From Wed 1-Fri 31 May, Cardiff’s residents and visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy all manner of interesting, enlightening and surprising photographic exhibitions in traditional and quirky venues throughout the city.
As David explains, “Cardiff may not have all the contemporary art venues that one might expect to find in Wales’ capital city, but it has some really interesting buildings that can become temporary venues, and a vibrant community of arts and cultural organisations, individual artists, designers, producers and creatives.” Among the venues, Diffusion sees the first official use of the Cardiff Tram Shed in Riverside which has recently been put up for sale by the council. Having had only two weeks to convert the bus depot into an arts gallery, it is hoped that the festival will not only be a draw for people interested in seeing the inside of the building, but that it will also surprise and delight those that enter. Three exhibitions of fantastic work will be on show from people like David Bailey, Peter Fraser and Jeremy Deller alongside new work from Wales-based photographers.
Other venues include the Cardiff Story, BayArt, Chapter Arts Centre, National Museum Wales, Arcadecardiff, Ffotogallery, Oriel Canfas and the Norweigan Church among many others, and as a result, even for those who are unaware of the city-wide festival, there are many opportunities to simply stumble across artwork and film installations from international and Welsh artists. It’s Not Too Late It’s Only Dark from Italian artist Maurizio Anzeri will be his first solo exhibition in Wales, and Edgar Martins from Portugal brings his exhibition The Time Machine: an investigation into the hopeful prospects instilled in 20 powerplants across Portugal. The global phenomenon of high-rise architecture is critiqued in Pete Bobby’s High-Rise, and Helen Sear takes seemingly simple objects and transforms them into captivating pieces that blur the lines between fine art and photography in Lure at BayArt.
Collective exhibitions within the festival programme also feature the work of numerous photographers tackling themes or subjects, and as David explains, the entire theme of the festival was well thought through. The name itself took some deliberation within the festival team. “Diffusion is an optical expression and it is associated with light and lenses and photography. It also conveys that it is a network event, a collaborative endeavour which has an impact in different parts of the city and beyond,” explains David. The title also leads into the festival programming with artists, cultural producers, curators and programmes being asked to address the question “And Where Are We Now?” which is explored with audiences and participants throughout the festival.
“The world has never before been so visualised, yet the nature and meaning of photography and its status in art has never been so hotly debated,” argues David who notes that we live in an age of image glut. “Diffusion offers a space for artists, cultural agents and audiences to share experience and creative endeavour, to begin to make sense of a world where almost anyone can and will become a photographer and distribute their images within online communities – a society in which our experience of time and space has dramatically changed.”
To this end, Diffusion will also include numerous interactive elements for those who want to become more deeply involved in the festival. The festival’s opening weekend includes a symposium at the National Museum Cardiff which looks at the status and meaning of the photograph in contemporary visual culture with a keynote address by internationally renowned artist Richard Wentworth. Throughout the month there will be free exhibitions, artist talks and workshops, schools’ programmes and photographic rambles around the city. The Diffusion Publishing Weekend takes place from Sat 25-Sun 26 May with the Photo Book Fair, and on the Saturday, the festival will also incorporate the already well-established Photomarathon event: a mass participatory creative photography competition.
Ffotohive sees Ffotogallery Education team up with David Boultbee from the BREAD art collective to produce five online artworks which will only exist with the input of the general public. Visit one of the five designated hives around the city, take a photo and tweet it to the project using the hashtag available at the hive and on the festival website. An interactive collage of the heart and soul of the capital will have then be captured for all to see over the month. Pop-up exhibitions and use of big screens will aim to further involve those perhaps initially unaware of the festival, and for those willing to get involved, the Diffusion website provides the perfect launchpad for many of these interactive photographic experiences.
These immersive elements perfectly suit the festival’s aim of breaking down any financial barriers, and with all events and exhibitions free to attend, the festival aims to encourage people to overcome any fear they might harbour over visiting art exhibitions or venues they may have not previously. “We want people to perhaps be surprised by the fact that they like things that they didn’t expect to like. For example we’ll be featuring camera-less photography at the exhibition,” adds David. “For me, photography is a very important medium in terms of expressing people’s lives and experiences, but it is also a completely open creative medium for people to work in. Diffusion highlights the role of photography as arguably the world’s most democratic and visible medium; to record contemporary life as lived, to represent urban and rural experience, and to imagine a future orientated new European identity.”
Encouraging people to think more broadly about visual art, Diffusion explores a world of photography in a new and stimulating way that will offer a huge number of opportunities for the general public and photography enthusiasts alike to get involved and discover the world through a range of new and intriguing perspectives.
Info: 029 2034 1667 / www.diffusionfestival.org