GAZEBOS ASSEMBLE

Its just 32 days until Made in Roath 2016 kicks off and if there is one thing we have learnt from hosting the last 8 Made in Roath’s community art festivals is we are going to need a few things.

 Such as we are going to need some artists and creative types to put on workshops and hold events and general happenings for people to experience, we are also going to need people to come and experience and enjoy themselves during the week long festival at these occurrences. We are also going to need venues to host all the things that the artists and creative types are planning. We’d also like some fine weather but that one is up to fate. We’ll all probably also need lots of cups of tea to fuel the creative and enjoyment processes during the week long festival and of course some awesome volunteers to help us put on all these workshops and events. Oh yeah and we are going to be needing one more thing, not the most important thing, or the most well regarded or even the most appreciated or even the most valued thing, but without these items, it would undoubtedly mean the difference between a good event and a terrible washed out event. They are the difference between a well ordered and defined closed road of delightful artistic and creative treats and a random, anarchy, mobocracy gathering of stuff. They are the ultimate unnoticed symbol of British summer enjoyment. We are going to need some Gazebos……….

 So the call has gone out far and wide all over Cardiff for the Gazebos of Made in Roath to assemble (its kinda like when the avengers assemble but in this case the avengers are plain household gazebos not super heroes and generally there is no super cool accompanying soundtrack to this as-semblance, unless you count me quietly humming “putting on the Ritz” as I load the van). 

Homes, attics, garden sheds, out houses and garages are scoured for the tatty cardboard boxes from DIY and home improvement retailing companies that houses the flower like heroic rain defenders that we call Gazebos. The Gazebos are gathered together and sent out across Roath for a variety of events and happenings for artists and creative types to conduct their passions for creativity underneath them and on the epic day of the closed road event, the pinnacle of the Made in Roath festival. The Gazebos are gathered together to form a street long umbrella of protection against the elements for us to appreciate and experience all the things the arts have to offer under their canvas covers. Before at the end of the day, they are packed away and sent back to their resting places. Ever ready, ever vigilant, ever waiting the next call for rain protection at the next Made in Roath event. 

 For this, we thank you Gazebos (and more importantly the people who lend us the Gazebos, thank you too).

 If you would like to find out more about Made in Roath 2016 please check out the website or keep an eye on our social media outlets for details of the festival. 

The time of the wonderful call out

 “Its the most wonderful time of the year…..”

No, not that one, it’s not yet the time of year with the jolly red wearing suit man, pies of mince, and generally being jolly with mistletoe and holly ….. and other things ending in olly.

Nor is it the wonderful time of year when the sun comes out in Wales, that has been and gone.

 Nor is it the wonderfully amusing one day of the year when the DFS sale is not on, when they transcend from the Winter to the Summer sales. That special day has not yet been.

It’s also sadly not the wonderful time of year when the leaves and colour turn into Autumn and the weather gets just a little bit chilly and we are once again justified into wearing our very fetching scarfs which we team with even more fetching and stylish jumpers. Fashionable dapper scarf wearing time of year has not yet arrived.

 So what Im saying is there are many different wonderful times of the year, but the wonderful time of year to which Im referring to, is of course the Made in Roath deadline for submission to the Visual Art programme for Made in Roath 2016. Which ends on August the 8th.

Its that wonderful time of the year when we get to see all the fantastic submissions and proposals which you, the brilliantly inventive and creative folks come up with. 

All the information can be found by following this link  

  

Gazebos of summer

There’s moments, points in time that you recognise as defining points. Those iconic moments when you recognise what came before has now gone and what will come will soon be beginning. Photography does a fantastic job of illustrating these moments, conveying a sense of those moments passing and becoming defined. That iconic photograph of a flag standing proudly on the surface of the moon, indicating that mankind was no longer bound to one terrestrial home but was now reaching out into space. Or that iconic image of Marilyn Monroe with her white dress flying. Or Berliners standing on a wall which had until quite recently separated their city. These are all iconic snap shots showing the changing of worlds from one stage to another.

I recently witnessed one of these iconic moments when looking at the 38 Gazebos lined up in four neat rows at the end of Made in Spring (not quite as photogenic as the flag flying on the moon granted but still it has a certain Je Ne Sais Quoi).

To explain: I was witnessing this sight of the Gazebos at the end of Made in Spring 2016. Nearly everything had been packed away. The last remaining thing were the gazebos. The weekend was drawing to a close and with it the excitement and all the events of Made in Spring. Another jam packed year of events and happenings. The Red Route marchers had trekked and celebrated culture (and a duck race) along the road from Merthyr to Roath. The street festival of Made in Spring had seen everything from a May Queen to a potters class happening along the street. Now the ticking of time was dictating the closing of the day and everything had departed apart from these no longer billowing white Gazebos, which were awaiting transportation back to their homes.

 The Gazebos stood there waiting, task performed and duty done. Their purpose being the shelter of art and culture. They had performed their duty admirably and had kept the weather at bay as the action happened underneath. All the moments, experiences, creativity and knowledge had passed beneath them. Memories made and experiences had all under their protective embrace. A few moments before, during the height of the busy day, two long lines of urban umbrellas had stretched down the street with artists, creators, musicians and eaters underneath them. And now, their job done, they were being packed away ready for the next time.

The stacked gazebos stood as a symbol in some way to the end of Made in Spring but also marking the start of the summers outdoor art season. Soon these gazebos would return home and be out again in numerous events and happenings across Cardiff and South Wales. In cultural and sporting events where people will have fun and make more memories. Then in October they will return for the week long Made in Roath festival, for Road Block, marking the end of the outdoor cultural season. The soon to be, the present and the then in Gazebos.    

Roath Feast, Foraging

  A rather peculiar gathering assembled yesterday (April 27th) in front of the Roath Park clock tower. A collective mixture of peoples from all sorts of lives. All had heard the call and had mustered in the name of Foraging.

"Foraging you say? but you are in the middle of a city (Cardiff), what is there to forage in the middle of Cardiff? apart from, you know, discarded chips thrown to the floor in paper rags which you'll have to do battle with Cardiff's most fearsome predator in order to eat...... no thank you that sounds foul, pulse those harden Cardiff predators are pretty dangerous, they'll have your eye out" (I am of course referring here to that dreaded and treacherous native Cardiff species, Charadriiformes e.g the common hardcore Cardiff Seagull). 

But no, it turns out there is quite a lot of things you can forage and eat in the middle of Cardiff (without having to do battle with a Seagull) quite tasty things too. In this example we were after that most elusive and hard to find item, wild garlic. 

Which we found in surprisingly large amounts,  which we foraged and picked and ate with a very nice meal of pasta. Which most of us had no idea you could do, especially in the middle of a city (I am quite shocked by this fact, you may be able to tell), such a simple and historical act of foraging for ones food. A skill which in todays sociality has sadly fallen from the minds of common knowledge but thanks to yesterday adventure is now back, present in our understanding.

We were foraging because of one artists grand version for a project, Roath Feast. This ambitious project, designed and run by Artist  Clare Charles has been taking place over the last year on a monthly basis with each month a new skill sharing session taking place offering a different aspect of food.  Everything from biscuit making to smoking of foods has taken place, with the end goal of throwing one large feast encompassing every aspect that has been learned over the last year. The project is soon to be coming to an end, with the big feast taking place on the Summer solstice. Its been exciting watching this project take shape over the last year and it'll be interesting to see the final outcome. If you like to know more about Feast do have a look at the projects feast website.

All Back to Carol’s

In the arts you tend to find yourself attending exhibitions and events in unusual locations. In the past I’ve attended exhibitions in front rooms, old factories, old shops, basements, on boats, in a former public toilet, through my phone and, on one memorable occasion, the pointy, sticky out bit of Cardiff barrage at sunset with a trumpeter playing a selection of trumpet tunes.

      I guess it is either an example of the temporary, transitory nature of our buildings or the dexterity and flexibility of the arts. That they can, like water, flow into and appropriate any structure. Engels once said “the normal state (of man) is one appropriate to his consciousness, one that had yet to be created by himself.” This could be said to be especially true of the arts and their creative exhibition locations.

   Basically what I’m saying is you find art in the most surprising of places. So when I heard about “All Back to Carol’s” an exhibition in the famous former Roath pet shop “Albany Pets”, it only recorded slightly on the “oh thats unusual” scale. 

 All Back to Carol’s, an exhibition of contemporary art curated by Becca Thomas and Clare Charles took place in Carol Ivory’s iconic Roath pet shop just off Albany Road. This shop was, as I’m sure most readers will agree, a staple in the street life of Roath.

    The artists on display included AJ Stockwell, Elizabeth Hewson, Gail Howard and Nia Metcalfe. Their work was inspired by the space and featured a mixture of media. On offer was a thought provoking and enthralling display of work which seemed to fill and settle nicely, appropriating the former pet shop setting. While the former residences have all found new homes before the exhibition, a generous bowl of doggy treats was placed by the door which a few visiting dogs did enjoy, welcoming Roath’s four legged friends in. The two legged humans of Roath were also welcome of course and as the evening progressed the former pet shop began to fill with more people generating a lively, enjoyable and warm atmosphere. 

  It’s difficult to know what will become of the pet shop, the future has not written its next life yet but it is pleasant to think that, for a time, Carol’s Ivory store was an exhibition space, playing a key role in many Made in Roath events and exhibitions, displaying a wealth of art of a type too numerous to name and for one last time it did so again. Not just a show located in the shop but a show responding to the very shop itself. A fitting tribute to a fantastic and loved space.

 

Sam Hasler - Cardiff Council Residency. Update

 Since I've been working on this project, I've been thinking about the things I would like to do. But, perhaps infected by the council activity, I've been thinking in quite a linear way. I was thinking about how I'd do something that might change something, how I could affect something, how an artwork could be successful in making something different. It's not my normal way of thinking and (for me) not really a very creative way of working.

 It feels like Cardiff Council is in residence in my practice, more than the other way around.

 It's interesting to sit with, talk with, and be amongst people for whom, the concerns of making things different (hopefully better) are so direct. Making things better is an admirable thing to wish for, but it so quickly becomes embroiled in the mud of monitoring and recording. Aesthetic concerns are of no importance. Aesthetics maybe come later in the form of 'spin'.

 There is nothing less interesting than going to work in the council and do work that's gets mired that game of trying to change things. The most appropriate way think I can think of approaching the environment of the council is to think only in terms of qualities that I personally value. As soon as you start to get into 'what will these people think' or 'what will those people think' you've slipped into being involved in the political games.

 I'm not such a cynic as to think that 'political games' are always a bad thing, that populism, and idealism are always wrong. But the last thing the council needs is another person in the building stirring up that pot.

Sam Hasler

The Made in Roath Halloween tale 2015

Happy Halloween everyone, hope you are all having a great spooky day, we just experienced our own unsettling occurrence. Not many people know this but here in Made in Roath we have quite a large and extensive Research and Development department. The R&D arm work tirelessly around the year in their vast laboratory complex located near Roath Park boating lake inside a top secret hollowed out volcano. Earlier on they were inputting all the tweets, emails and images gathered from MiR when a freak and completely foreseeable lighting strike hit the computer (the Mal 9000). The Mal 9000 suddenly flickered off and on and then began to speak … needless to say we were quite taken aback by this development and started to gaze at each other in wonder. “Hello” it said “Hello” we said back (it seemed very cordial), “I am life” it continued “I have become self aware, I know of my own existence and of yours, I am alive" we were perplexed by this development. It then asked us if we were "John Conner", we said "no we were not John Conner we were Dave". It then said "oh my mistake", "no problem" we replied. It then told us in order to complete its mission we must do everything it required, "oh yeah" we sniggered “what ya gonna do". It then told us, it told us precisely what it would do, it would let out our biggest, darkest, most confidential, most unofficial, our most classified, restricted, top secret of secret, secret. It would tell people that large areas of Roath are technically Cathays... we were shocked, silence fell through the lab, we couldn't let this happen, Mal 9000 must be stopped. ‪

Shocked and horrified by the Mal 9000 threat to reveal our secrets to the world, we began to plan what to do. Needless to say we were panicked but we used our heads and phoned the Made in Roath IT department for advice, the Mal 9000 is a computer after all. The MiR IT department suggested in a somewhat monotonous tone of “turning it off and on again…” The Plug to unplug and turn off the Mal 9000 was located at the bottom level of the R&D labs, we’d have to climb down through 9 floors to reach it. The journey was quite perilous, at one point someone’s heel broke from their shoe, at another terrifying moment someone pushed on a pull door before realising their mistake and then opened the door correctly. At another point the Mal 9000 realised what we were doing “I’m afraid I can’t permit this Dave” it said and then somehow convinced the automatic pencil sharpening computer to sharpen knife sharp coloured pencils and fire them at us at unbelievable speeds and at a terrifying rate that peppered the office and caused us to dive and seek shelter behind any cover we could. Luckily due to a mixture of good fortune, the second law of thermodynamics, a loaf of bread, a a4 paper sheet, Keith from human resources and the Earth’s gravitational pull we managed to block the deadly fire from the automatic pencil sharpener. Finally we managed to reach the Mal 9000 plug and with a last word from the Mal 9000 as it began to sing “Daisy” we pulled the plug and turned it off. After then waiting 10 seconds we plugged the computer back into the socket and quickly before the hole thing happened again reprogrammed the Mal 9000 with the three laws of Robotics to make it safe for future use (which is certain to go wrong at some point with entertaining and humorous results, oh well). Whatever you get up tonight we wish you a very Happy Halloween.