this is the end

Dear all,

"Visitors" has come to an end. The exhibition was open to the public for 19 days and during that time it was visited by almost 250 people. The response has been overwhelmingly positive; apart from good reviews, we heard stories of photographic experiences, favourite cameras and family photos - and we were even hugged!

We would like to wholeheartedly thank Migle Backovaite, Nóra Barabás, Nathan Duarte, Dai Howell, Hanan Kazma and Birgit Zartl for agreeing to participate. 

Running the exhibition has been a very rewarding experience and it gave us the push to continue. We gave our project a name - the*kickplate*project and the next exhibition is called "behind her 'I's", opening for three weeks on the 3rd of August at the same address.

So thanks again to the artists and to everyone who came, some more than once, and for all the help and support we got from the local community and our families. Diolch!

 

You can continue to follow our project on our new blog.

We are now trying to raise funds for our project and gallery through kickstarter - please take time to have a look at it and share our project with others - we would really appreciate your help!

Thank you and see you soon,

Zosia and Dafydd

gallery panorama

Dear all,

here's a full panorama of our pop-up gallery, almost as wide as in reality, so if you move the bottom tab to the right, you'll be able to see it in its full glory, and catch a glimpse of our secret garden and our awesome lilac chair. 

Enjoy the last moments of Visitors as much as we do!

P.S. Not Visitors-related, but we have just found a petition aimed at saving one of the biggest photographic archives, which is destined to be destroyed after it's been digitised. We find it absolutely heartbreaking and outrageous, so please follow the link and sign, for the love of photography.

the walls: part 5

Dear all,


our exhibition is coming to an end, those of you who haven't seen it yet still have time till Saturday evening!

Here's the last part of our virtual gallery tour:

with pictures by Dafydd Williams

and Nathan Duarte.

Some colours may be slightly different than in reality.

the walls: part 4

Dear all,


we're continuing our virtual tour of the walls, with our slopey wall hosting an exhibition within the exhibition.

 

Instant images by Dafydd Williams

 

and more photos by Hanan Kazma.

Some colours may be a bit different than in reality.

the walls: part 3

Dear all,


here's the third part of our gallery walls, featuring work by Birgit Zartl and some of the images by Hanan Kazma that we're showing.

Colours may be slightly different than in reality.

We start our second week

Today marks the beginning of our second week. 

The first week went really well and the number of people coming to the exhibition has already exceeded our expectations, so we'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to visit the exhibition so far. We'd also like to let anyone still considering visiting us know, that the exhibition will be open for another 2 weeks - so you still have plenty of time if you're planning to come from a little further away.

If you'd like any information about any of the artists, exhibition or directions on how to find us, you can contact us any time.

Dear all,

just to let you know we're having a couple days' break from posting photos of the walls, 

so as not to spoil the surprise for those of you who come to the exhibition.

Meanwhile, we're thinking about how to turn this project into something more permanent.

We'll keep you posted!

the walls: part 2

Dear all,


here's to show you the second part of our left wall - you can see the first part here.

The images presented are by Zosia Krasnowolska and Dai Howell.

The colours may be slightly different than in reality.

the walls: part 1

Dear all,

for those of you unable to make it, we'll be adding photos of the images as they hang on the wall.

Here's the first half of our left wall, as you look from outside (the kickplate wall*).

First up Nóra Barabás, Nathan Duarte and Migle Backovaite.

Some colours may vary slightly from reality. 

*a kick-plate is a metal plate attached to the wall of a hairdressing salon, preventing impatient customers from destroying it with their shoes while getting a haircut. It serves other purposes as well, like lining photos up on the wall of your pop-up gallery.

the opening

Dear all,

we're happy to announce that "Visitors" officially opened yesterday. We had some guests to the opening, including one of our artists Dai Howell, and some positive response from the local community. The second day already exceeded our expectations, especially considering the competition from the perfect barbecue weather and a heavy-metal festival ;-)  

We would like to wholeheartedly thank all the participants and everyone who has already attended. We expect to see the rest of you soon!

Tomorrow we'll be adding photos of the images displayed in the gallery.

introducing the organisers: Dafydd Williams and Zosia Krasnowolska

Dafydd Williams has worked as a trainee graphic designer, admin for a cleaning company, financial company and health service, an English teacher, proof-reader and hostel receptionist.

He is now an experimental photographer and camera builder and hopes to stick to that.

After a brief digital phase, Dafydd started taking analogue photos a few years ago. He has since modified several cameras, created a pin-hole holga, built two view cameras and is currently working on his third, a large format. Dafydd also enjoys testing new techniques and took part in (possibly) the first-ever polaroid film swap with a fellow photographer in Austria. He has taken part in "Pray for Japan by the 101", a project to raise money for victims of the tsunami in Japan. One of his visual poems was included in a book by Hanan Kazma. Dafydd has recently published his first book.

***

Zosia Krasnowolska is a cultural studies graduate, a translator and an English teacher.

Zosia has been taking photographs since a young age. Working almost exclusively with expired or supermarket film, and still using her first camera, Zosia explores the themes of silence and the passage of time.

Her latest series of images was made using the technique "natural diptychs", the idea of creating a single image out of 2 seperate images side-by-side, not by the selection of hindsight, but on the roll of film itself - with foresight.

Zosia recently participated in "dialography", a project began by an Iranian photographer Farhad Barham. She also contributed an image to "The Interpersonally Happy", an international project created to raise awareness of domestic violence. An e-book of the images selected has been released to help raise funds for the issue.

You can see more of her images here.

day three: we are ready!

Dear all,


the third day of preparations was marked with spray glue, card and a level. 

The opening is tomorrow, so we don't want to give too much away.

We really hope to see you there, and if you're still wondering how to make it to Abertillery,
have a look at our directions.

P.S. We're very excited!

introducing our visitors: Dai Howell

Dai Howell lives in South Wales and is an MA photography student at Swansea Metropolitan University.

He specialises in the technique of light painting. Using a torch and long exposures, Dai creates spellbinding images, from childhood supersititions to myths of monsters, from fantastic night landscapes to alien visitations and from starlit skies to a reworking of one of Goya's painting. In Dai's own words, light painting "appears to have magical qualities. (...) The translation of Photography from the Greek word means painting with light. Using a torch to sculpt an image with light that can only be seen on the camera I think is quite a cool translation of the word".

Recently, he's been exploring the subject of how we interact with modern technology, and how our experience of computers and the Internet affects our world.

You can find more of his work here.

As part of our exhibition, we'll be showing Dai's older and more recent work.

day 2: tiny triumphs

Dear all,

you'll all be happy to hear that our wall's skin, this morning, still sat taught and high in its place - so after a little touching up, a nip and a tuck and some cleaning, the space is finally ready...

how to find us

from Cardiff (or by car from Swansea or west Wales):

*by train: catch a train to Llanhilleth (dir. Ebbw Vale), then X15 (Stagecoach) or X1 (Phil Anslow) bus to Abertillery High Street.

When you get off, follow the street with the church to your left. We're 3 minutes from the bus stop, on the right at the far end of the street - opposite the Post Office.

*by car: take the M4 east, exit on junction 28 towards Brynmawr (A467) and follow that road through the hills and valleys until you reach Abertillery (should take about 25 after exiting the motorway).

from Newport:

*by bus: Stagecoach X15 from Newport to Brynmawr, get off on Abertillery High Street.

*by car: the A467 from Tredger House roundabout runs direct to Abertillery, or via A4042 to Cwmbran, A472 (via Pontypool) to Crumlin and then (A467) to Abertillery.

If you're coming from the top end of the Valleys (any valley), follow the heads of the Valleys to Brynmawr and then follow the signs for Abertillery. There are several free car parks in town, the closest one to us is Foundry Bridge Car Park.

For more details on bus schedules, go to Traveline Cymru website.

Coming from England head west on the M4 and exit on junction 28 and then follow A467 to Abertillery.

day 1: painting (unpainting, repainting) or: architectural archeology

Dear all,

our exhibition preparations have entered its practical phase. We began in haste with one tin of paint, soon to double and to discover white is not always brilliant white, it can be in fact quite yellow. After the first painting, palimpsests of our temporary gallery's hairgrooming past had been unearthed, and peeled from the walls along with the paint, to our surprise.

And so we began again, third tin in hand - even more brilliant white - but not before cake.

 A note to our participants - do not panic. The paint is drying.

introducing our visitors: Migle Backovaite

Migle Backovaite is a Lithuanian photographer based in London.

You can see the variety of Migle's work on her page. She uses a wide range of cameras and techniques, working with both film and digital. Migle has participated in numerous exhibitions and works professionally as a photographer, specialising in art, fashion and portraiture.

"I like creating an image of the self that is not yet known, the self that is full of mysticism and intrigue. I like exploring the darker side of the moon as well as the hidden parts of the human nature. Through photography I get to know myself."

As part of the exhibition, we'll be showing images from Migle's collection Without THEM. Through our selection, we hope to render Migle's taste for dream-like compositions, her eye for colour and an off-kilter photographic gaze.

As Migle says,

"In landscapes I find myself,- there is no need to analyse, interpret, or understand, the creation is in front of me, pure and clear, even though ever-changing but beautiful forever."

introducing our visitors: Nathan Duarte

Nathan Duarte lives in Toulouse, France.

He enjoys working with simple analogue cameras, instant film and expired film stock. In his photographic still lives, Nathan looks for aesthetics and originality, creating surreal and complex images. Using everyday objects out of their usual context and with a strong colour palette adds depth and layers to items we normally take for granted. He also explores architecture and urban spaces.

Nathan has self-published a book and is also a contributor at Global Mission of Art, an international online group for sharing and spreading artistic projects. You can find more of Nathan's images here and here.

He also kindly let us use his Holga image, Another Horizon, for the exhibition poster. Thank you so much Nathan! We will be showing a selection of prints made from Nathan's collection of images taken on instant film during the exhibition.

Nathan is a graduate of Intelligent and Interactive Systems Engineering.

introducing our visitors: Hanan Kazma

Dr Hanan Kazma lives in Tripoli, Lebanon. She currently works as a paediatric dentist.

Hanan only recently began taking photographs, but is already an accomplished artist and much respected. In her work she explores the ideas of self and tries to re-examine the classic idea of portraiture, using a variety of in-camera and post-production techniques. Often working as her own model, she experiments with how to represent the inner factors that make up our image rather than the image we project from the outside.

Hanan is a very prolific artist and has already self published several books, some as a solo-artist, but also in collaboration with other international artists. In 2011 she had her first major solo-exhibition showing 120 photographs, also designing and producing the book accompanying the exhibition.

We will be exhibiting a range of her images that we hope will show the variety of techniques, styles and quality in Hanan's body of work so far. You can find more of her work here.

introducing our location: Abertillery

Abertillery is a town of approximately 10,000 people in South Wales, UK. Located in a beautiful valley and previously part of one of the biggest British mining districts, the town is now a quiet residential area with a small town centre and some independent local shops.

The town centre contains some well-preserved examples of 19th and early 20th century architecture and we will be occupying the shop above.

introducing our visitors: Nóra Barabás

Nóra Barabás was born and lives in Szeged, Hungary. Using photography as a form of self-expression, she captures the emotions, states of mind and atmosphere that inspire her. Her images are related to the self and perceptions of the self.

Nóra works primarily in black and white to better capture and visualise her “inner journey”.

As part of “Visitors”, we will be showing a selection of her analogue images. You can find more of Nóra’s works here.

As part of her artistic expression Nóra also collaborates with other photographers creating original images and diptychs, working both with analogue and digital tools. She runs features on her blog, bringing together the works of other artists and arranges them in an aesthetic and thoughtful way. Her journals are regularly posted here.

Nóra is a law student at Szeged University.