
Ahead of the latest edition of Diffusion, Ffotogallery’s biennial photography festival, Fedor Tot looks at what we can expect. Extra contributions by Bethan Goodwin, Sophie Williams, Ruth Seavers, and Chris Andrews.
It’s not the first time the Diffusion festival has been themed after the title of a David Bowie song. Its first edition – back in the halcyon days of 2013, before we had considered the need to stockpile in the event of no deal – posed the question, “where are we now?” in a sly reference to Bowie’s then-comeback single. This year, it’s the turn of Sound + Vision, where Diffusion now takes a turn towards investigating the links between the static image and music, whilst also chucking in film, experiential installations, and all manner of lofty ideas in between.
At times, looking at the programme, it seems as if it’s struggling to contain the amount of wild, experimental, surreal ideas contained within, but that’s all the more reason to investigate. Diffusion has always been a city-wide festival: this year it returns to regular haunts such as Chapter Arts Centre and Ffotogallery’s two spaces in Penarth and Castle St, but there are also new spaces such as Shift, a new multimedia space in the Capitol Shopping Centre.
As well as the exhibitions on show throughout April, there are a number of one-off events that Diffusion is putting together. At the Wales Millennium Centre on Thurs 4 Apr, there is the Woman’s Work symposium, where women in the creative fields talk about how they’ve succeeded in the industry despite numerous challenges. The WMC will also host repeat performances of the album Juniper by Slowly Rolling Camera, from Wed 3 to Fri 5 Apr. However, these performances are pared with moving images by 4Pi; where traditionally we have music accompanying images, here we will have images accompanying music.
Keep an eye out for Buzz on the ground at Diffusion as well. We’ll be at the Makers’ Fayre in Shift on Sat 13 Apr, where numerous other creatives, craftspeople and artists will be about, showcasing our fresh artistic produce. Additionally, there will also be a series of soundbooth installations at the WMC during the month – and we’re tasked with crafting one of them. Beyond that, we’ll be around and about. Read on for the highlights of Diffusion 2019.
Multiple venues across Cardiff and Penarth throughout April. Info: www.diffusionfestival.org

BUZZ RECOMMENDS!
PHRAME: AS WE SEE IT
The Gate, Cardiff, throughout April
All-female collective PHRAME bring their inaugural exhibit to Diffusion. As We See It uses mixed media to create complex and layered work with richly varied themes. The variety of individuals, all talented artists and photographers, means the exhibition will be diverse in content. However there remain common strategies and approaches behind all of their works – they are all interested in documentary-based storytelling and the physicality and materiality of analogue photography. The collective is all-female, partly to address the imbalance that currently exists and the shortage of opportunities for women to showcase their work.
ALTERED EGO
Insole Court, Cardiff, Sat 13-Sun 28 Apr
Altered Ego is a multi-disciplinary art project from a collective of six disabled and non-disabled artists. Their intention here is to examine ideas of who we think we really are and how we present ourselves to the outside world. Blurring the lines between reality and make-believe these artists have been given freedom to completely create new identities, from teen idol popstars and playboys to spies and aristocrats. As they unleash mayhem upon Insole Court, they’ll be using photography, video, sound, painting and drawing to document the lives of these altered egos in this creative and unique project.
STANZA: THE NEMESIS MACHINE
Ffotogallery, Castle Street, Cardiff, throughout April
Cities are always evolving and expanding, and so is this multi-layered art exhibition. The Nemesis Machine is a model city, but not the quaint kind you might find in a historical museum. Rather, it is built out of computer chips and processors, as if the innards of the internet were spilling out in front of you to create a new, digitised city. The city is alive too – with multiple sensors and hidden cameras within designed to respond to changes in the atmosphere (for example, the nearby presence of pollutive gases) – which then results in different behaviours in the city itself.
BRIAN DAVID STEVENS: NOTTING HILL SOUND SYSTEMS
Shift Gallery, Cardiff, throughout April
The Notting Hill Carnival has long been one of the biggest expressions of Afro-Caribbean culture in the UK, and Stevens’ photographic series pays tribute to one of its most enduring and crucial tools, the sound system. Waking up in the early morning, before the masses arrive, he takes photos of sound systems, many of them hand-built by their owners to get the exact right level of rumble for the party. Taken in the morning, without the colour we usually associate with the party, they look monolithic, imposing, obtuse, before the party kicks off in style.

RICHARD JONES: THE COAL FACE
The Senedd, Cardiff Bay / Shift Gallery, Cardiff, throughout April
Coal mining is one of, if not the defining historical force in south Wales over the last 200 or so years. The industry, both its overgrown past and its residual present, have provided artists with fertile starting points for years. Most former miners now are growing old, and this project represents of form of remembrance. A number of ex-miners sat as hi-tech cameras photographed every inch of their heads, resulting in high-resolution 3-D photographs of their faces. Our lives, in some way, shape the way we look – whether we stoop or stand tall, whether we’ve been battered by the elements or lived a life of luxury. The Coal Face hopes to illuminate that. At Shift, the exhibition will also be accompanied by John Rea’s Atgyfodi.
JOHN REA: ATGYFODI
Shift Gallery, Cardiff, throughout April
Rea’s long-term ongoing project Atgyfodi delves deep into the archives to unearth the hidden sights and sounds of Wales’ cultural history and memory. Meaning ‘to resurrect’ in Welsh, the project uses music and archival images to tell the story of Welsh culture, with Rea adapting and elaborating on musical themes from folk music to develop new contemporary sounds. A unique meshing of past and present, this is a unique work that fits smartly into the Sound + Vision theme for this year’s festival.
SEBASTIAN BRUNO: SONGS FROM THE FAMILY – A MUSICAL BY GEORGE & MARTHA LOWMAN
Senedd, Cardiff Bay, throughout April
It’s an unlikely story, but a beguiling one. In 2015 Argentine photographer Sebastian Bruno moved to Abertillery. There, he met Martha Lowman, who many years ago had wrote a musical with her husband George, frustrated at the fact that so much industry had left the Valleys, decimating her community. The musical, titled The Family, was never staged for various reasons but intended to look at the mining communities as families of sorts. This installation charts the story of that never-heard musical and brings it to the present day.
KURT LAURENZ THEINERT: TIMESHIFTS / BEFORE THE CONTENT
Ffotogallery, Castle Street, Cardiff, throughout April
Two pieces by this German photographer, musician and light artist are being combined with the live event Visual Piano on Fri 5 Apr, where a MIDI piano is played live to generate images. Timeshifts is an attempt to represent time within photography, showing only the changes within an image over time, with static imagery being reduced to grey. Time of course, is one thing still photography cannot intrinsically represent, so it will be interesting to see how this works out. Before The Content is described as “a series of photographs taken without a camera”: in this case, the brief moment on a website where the structure has loaded by the content has yet to appear. At least, that’s how this writer understands it.

JONNA KINA: FOLEY OBJECTS
Ffotogallery, Castle Street, Cardiff, throughout April
Finnish artist Kina continues her work with sound, vision and language, presenting an exhibition of 30 photos of everyday objects with seemingly no relation to their accompanying caption. But further study will soon open up another realm of enjoyment and you will find yourself actually listening to photos. The term Foley comes from the movie process of adding sound effects to films in post-production and Kina has taken that audiovisual concept and turned it on its head, creating a thoroughly engaging and thought-provoking experience.
TIMOTHY GWYN JOHN: INTIMATE DISTANCE
The Senedd, Cardiff Bay, throughout April
Connectivity has been a theme throughout the career of Timothy Gwyn John. His work with wood and sound, spurred by a fascination with telephone poles scattered across landscapes versus the world’s obsession with social media, sees John studying the relationship between tradition and technology in his art. This exhibition examines connectivity and for Intimate Distance John is using beautifully crafted bird tables, crafted using different woodwork disciplines combined with the language of birdsong, to create an overpowering and indulgent escapade for the senses.
LISA BRUNZELL: LET THE WORLD ADORE YOU
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, throughout April
One of the largest pop acts ever, Abba have spawned a multitude of tribute acts over the years and they form the basis for Lisa Brunzell’s exhibition, Let The World Adore You. A Swede who grew up in the UK, Brunzell has seen an influx of these acts and now looks at the where the line is drawn between the actor and the person – the real deal and the pretender. Using photographs of Abba and their doppelgangers, Lisa investigates the people behind the tribute. Are they a person or are they an act? Is it possible that they are both at the same time?
WHAT THE ARTISTS SAY

MICHAL IWANOWSKI – GO HOME, POLISH
Turner House Gallery, Penarth, throughout April
In April 2018, photographer Michal Iwanowksi set off on what would become a 105-day long journey from Cardiff to Poland, on foot. Originally from Poland but having lived in Cardiff for over 20 years, Iwanowski was inspired to take the journey after the outcome of the EU referendum, and seeing the graffiti “GO HOME POLISH” scrawled on a wall in the Roath area. It caused him to question the idea of home as a physical place, so he started the long walk armed with his camera to find answers.
The results are a mix of philosophical words and striking images. Alongside his images will also be music from Gwenno, a calculated decision on his part. “Because the title of the project is super aggressive, people will make assumptions about it, but then they will see that prolific Welsh musicians are a part of it and they will second guess the nature of the project. I think the biggest surprise was I didn’t get much negativity or confrontation. The whole walk itself was very positive.” The very purpose of Iwanowksi’s walk was to find some answers regarding the nature of ‘home’ and what it means. “[What is home] is a complex answer, but I now know I don’t need anybody else to tell me whether I’m home or not. I feel it, and that means I am home. There are people who do religious and spiritual pilgrimages and usually find the answers within themselves. It sounds like a pile of hippy-ish bullshit but it works that way, I think.”
In a time when the country is divided, Iwanowski’s project provides proof of hope, as shown by the encounters with the people he met along the way. “People felt unified with me. Even those I met who were leavers, they were just nice. It was wonderful to bring myself and other people down to this one-on-one level, which you don’t get in the press because they’re all about umbrella terms which are easy to demonize. But when you meet a person and they have a name and a face and they smile at you it’s a totally different conversation.”
ALINA KISINA – CHILDREN OF VISION
Shift, Cardiff, throughout April
Ukrainian-born Alina Kisina wanted to create something profound by documenting her continuing work with visually impaired children at the Kiev Special School Of Art, reflecting their innermost thoughts rather than their physical disability. “Children Of Vision probes the notion that when we are challenged in a particular area, we might have a skill or talent that compensates for that. Ultimately, I believe that there is a deeper desire to look beyond our ideas of what visual impairments entail. I wasn’t trying to avoid the fact that there is a disability, but I wasn’t trying to accentuate it either.
“There is a bigger, deeper sense of beauty and strength in all of us, and this is the idea that I invite the viewer to connect with. It’s the beauty of human experience and the transcendence of ourselves, having that wide-eyed determination to deal with whatever cards have been laid down for you. These children are so much more than their diagnosis.”

THE BUREAU OF LOST CULTURE – X-RAY AUDIO
Shift, Cardiff, throughout April
Bootleggers in the Soviet Union of the 1950s, determined to hear the banned sounds of Western rock’n’roll, assembled record presses which used X-ray film in place of regular vinyl. Decades later, The Bureau Of Lost Culture bring the amazing story of this music back across the Iron Curtain. One member of the Bureau, Stephen Coates, says, “The purpose of the project is to recollect and tell lost countercultural stories. Particularly ones which deal with music and cultural resistance in some way.
“I have been going to Russia to perform for about 12 years now and I was fascinated anyway by Cold War culture, so going to Russia for me was fascinating. And I came across the story of X-Ray Audio by accident – I literally found a record in the flea market and that’s how that began. But I think there’s something unique about Cold War culture and it’s got a certain resonance now – there’s this idea of a new Cold War starting up.”
ZARA MADER – i-D
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, throughout April
Inspired by the iconic style of X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene, Zara Mader hopes to detail the oft-ignored impact that women have had on the punk movement over the years. “For me Poly Styrene represented a side of punk that you rarely saw – a mixed-race punk who was the front woman of a successful band. She struck a chord with me; like her, I am half British and half Somali. She made me realise that it wasn’t so weird that I liked punk and on top of that her lyrics are as current today as they were in the 1970s, dealing with themes like plastic waste, consumerism and the place of women in society.
“Given that it’s been just over 40 years since punk happened, the fact that Poly Styrene can still inspire a project is quite something. Punk, and the history of it, has a heavy male focus and concentrating on a female punk helps highlight women’s contribution to it.”