The Screen

  • Header image
  • Header image
  • Header image

Jonathan Arndell & Dafydd Williamsthe [...] space

05 April - 08 May 2016

Response to the Swansea International Festival (SIF)


Jonathan Arndell

Jonathan uses found objects to explore ideas around abandonment and the consequent gradual disintegration of human-made environments and artefacts. His work as an architect over 40 years has involved the re-invention of existing buildings for new uses. He has often had to explore buildings that have been empty for many years and is fascinated by the ‘stuff’ that people have chosen to leave behind when vacating these spaces.

 

Jonathan’s response to theSIFtakes this aspect of his work and uses it to explore the nature of barriers to the appreciation of ‘high art’ and asks: ‘Why is it so difficult to engage a greater cross-section of our community in the festival?’ The significance of the abandoned bingo hall is obviously that bingo is a pass-time with a very different target audience. The environment offered to bingo players is one that makes very little concession to beauty or delight. Finishes are basic and purely functional. The colour palette is brash and monosyllabic. Music, food and drink are offered, but the focus is primarily on the numbers.

 

The suspended ceiling here represents a barrier of knowledge and the further question is: ‘How can this barrier be removed or penetrated to allow a wider audience for the kind of music offered by theSIF?’ This question is an ancient one. No answer is offered here, only a note made that maybe it is possible to make ‘high art’ more accessible to everyone if it is placed within their everyday experiences and environments.

 


 


Dafydd Williams

 

In collaboration with architect Jonathan Arndell, photographer and artist Dafydd Williams has attempted to capture the interior of the decaying yellowing walls of the old bingo hall. The images depict an aged decor, naff architecture, and repetitive mess. Off set walls and seats, odd angles and relationships between objects and the building taps into ones need for organisation and formality. A combination of the yellow-stained walls and harsh interior lighting, with little exterior/natural light, sets the numbing colour palette, the only glimpse of refreshing colour comes from where frames were once mounted on the walls, these patches being the only parts of the wallpaper that have been protected from smoke and age. These images speak of trace, what once was, and what we leave behind. A throwaway culture. It displays the presence of people without the physical, bodily presence. The aftermath of many Thursday nights at the bingo hall.

 

Dafydd Williams is a 3rd year Photography in the Arts student studying at Swansea College of Art, UWTSD,Swansea. His work mainly focuses on Heteronormativity and Homosexual stereotyping, recently making intergenerational connections between supposedly gay classical artists, the male figures they depicted, and the irony of the religious institutions these figures were depicted in.

 


 

Showcase continues in the Colonnade Gallery at the National Waterfront Museum

With thanks to Swansea County Council

<< Back to Previous Page