Looking for America – Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography returns
Diffusion, the international
photography biennale organised by Cardiff’s Ffotogallery is currently in
full swing, hosting group shows, talks and photography-related events
around the city for the entire month of October.
The theme, Looking for America, was
announced back in May 2013, on the last day of the previous edition.
Despite the continuous barrage of American imagery, David Drake
(director of Ffotogallery and curator of the festival) says that the
theme is as pertinent as ever.
“I was interested in the strange paradox
that from outside of America there was still an allure around Americana
and a lot of the things that become representative of the American
Dream. But within America there was a sense of corrosion, that
everything had gone wrong.
The inside perspective on America was quite dark and
dystopian whereas from a European perspective America was still the
promised land, a land of opportunity. I thought that we could have quite
a lot of fun exploring those notions through the festival.”
The festival spans several sites around
the city, in an effort to engage both serious photography lovers and a
broader audience. The empty storefronts on Wood Street, a central area
earmarked for regeneration have been repurposed into accessible gallery
spaces.
The Abacus art space has been taken over
by The Caravan Gallery, the mobile exhibition venue and visual arts
project run by artists Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale. Constantly
grappling with what they call “local distinctiveness and regional
identity” with a mischievous sense of the surreal, they’ve set up an
“art exhibition-cum-alternative visitor information centre” to explore
the many facets of Cardiff.
Also on Wood Street is As It was Give(n) to Me,
Stacy Kranitz’s installation exploring the former mining communities of
Appalachia. The hard-edged images are leavened by historical maps, folk
artefacts and found objects that allow for a more textured expression
of post-industrial decline.
A couple of doors down is Roger Tiley’s
own, softer black-and-white images of these communities. This bridge
between Kranitz and Tiley, known for his work documenting Welsh coal
mines, is a prime example of the vein of dialogue between Wales and
America that Drake hopes runs through the exhibition.
“Looking at the experience of people in
the former mining community of Appalachia and that of people in South
Wales, you could find similar images – though perhaps the Welsh pictures
have more people getting drunk and maybe different drugs… The impact of
the closure of the mines on communities and the lack of prospects, the
fact that in South Wales there is 35% unemployment… it parallels what’s
going on in Appalachia.”
Similarly, Ken Griffith’s Patagonia delineates
a shared culture between Wales and the Americas in a small pocket
straddling Chile and Argentina. The New Zealander documented his
expeditions to Chubut, Patagonia to follow in the footsteps of the Welsh
settlers of the late 1800s who ventured to South America in search of a
land where they could preserve their culture and language.
Stadium Plaza, a retail and leisure
quarter replete with a Vue cinema and a bowling alley is another
unexpected venue for Diffusion to sneak work into. While Vue punters
queue at the concession stand, they’ll catch a glimpse of the raw,
unvarnished images of California from Stephen McClaren’s Westcoastism. David
Magnusson’s portraits of young girls from Louisiana, Colorado and
Arizona who have taken purity vows with their fathers have been blown up
to size, looming over the view of the River Taff. The curious can
venture further to find work by the likes of Jack Latham, Janire Nájera,
and Arthur Tress.
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