Storiel, Bangor. Celebration Of Five years
Author: Alan Whitfield
My documentary films and photographs are a social commentary, steeped in the urban, industrial landscape of my northern British roots.
I’m attempting to represent a visceral melancholy, a longing and loss. The colours I capture often conjure the emotional impact of the ravages of capitalism and time on the individual and the community.
I focus on the overlooked, abandoned, where thriving, prosperous communities have been replaced by derelict modernist architecture, concrete fragments of factories or shops that signal human endeavour, labour and loss.
My dyslexia inform my work. I use mis-registers, misunderstandings, and malapropisms to shape the flow and rhythm of my poems and performances.
My poetry performances are a vulnerable, fizzing battle cry for the working class. I choose to stage them in non-arts contexts, from car parks, underpasses, caravans, abandoned houses, bingo halls, market halls to tea dances.
I want my work to be as accessible as possible, so I’m trying to find touch points that people recognise but reflect the environment back to them in a new way.
Captain
Captain
lending lines
Weaker minds
Prophetic patriarch
Belly of the beast
Followers like yeast
Basbaball cap calamity
Vitriol verbal depravity
No nicotine yet orange fingers
That rock suits you well
Go on crawl under
Come on you are unwell
#ffloc
Looking Up
“Looking up” was my response to a constant fear of heights. The 10 images where taken in a way to disorientate. Looking up at he walls and vantage points. The work was installed in Caernarfon Castle as part of a IPP Stamp funded ACW Project
“Humph”
I created a community-based project that was formed around the influence of the 1940’s Mass Observation works in Bolton, England, by Humphrey spender at Tedder House, Llandudno. The work involved a short film created around the perimeter of the Mass Observation Area. For which is used a bike with 3 cameras giving you a forward backwards and rear perspective. The work was part of Llawn04 in the FreeHaus. I gave participants in the mass observation workshop a map with a boundary in the project. This is shown on the bike. The viewer was asked to walk on the image and engage with the building and the work by walking on it.
Pil Box, One Mile Radius, Oriel Mostyn
I was invited to put work into Mostyn Gallery, Llandudno. The work approached makers in a one mile radius of the Gallery. So sat amongst a great collection of makers from Home made Large format cameras, Painters to Cake Makers. It was a eclectic mix. My work featured was taken in Sicily a few years ago as part of a Residency I was part of. The work was never shown and has been somewhat nomadic in finding a place for it hang. So it was nice to see it come back full circle and be displayed in Llandudno The work show all the boxes that kept the island safe in the area of Millazo
Maes
“Poetry Bingo” Llawn03, Ty Pawb and Made in Roath…
For Llawn03 (2016) as part of Haus Of Helfa, “Poetry Bingo” for the first time. Three games of bingo performed in the same place that the old turns of ‘The Rafa Club’ took place. I recreated a working man’s club environment to play the game. Poetry randomly placed in a heated game of bingo for real prizes The game was interrupted with sight-specific poetry. I got to tour “Poetry Bingo” across Wales two years later supported by ACW. The spinning balls where called in Ty Pawb and then down to The Roath Park Pub in Roath, Cardiff for Made In Roath festival. Not forgetting a fantastic Call of a few games in Mecca Bingo, Wrecsam with the support of Ty Pawb
Car-nar-von, Carn, Artist Residency
Car-nar-von was the conclusion of my month-long residency with Carn, Caernarfon (March 2018). The residency looked at me in search of the real town. I wanted to investigate the town and put on a performance that connected to a family holiday with relatives that concluded with us be dumped in Bundaberg, Queensland. Three days’ drive from flight home in Sydney.
I found the real town not just the tourist part around the castle. Such a wealth of history friendly faces and a will to survive. As the work documented on my take over of the Carn Instagram. The words I performed at the end were a trilogy of response to My Uncle who played the main part in leaving us who we have never spoken to since (this happened in 1996). As part of the residency, I approached the local community to take part in a photography workshop.
The three poems raise the question of longing distance and unanswered questions. I also invited Welsh Musician and performance poet Sian Miriam and poet Rhys Trimble to contribute. I found it pretty brutal to perform. Sometimes wearing your heart on your sleeve can have positive effects, it’s just how you control it?
Pictures by Roj Smith
Pictures by Roj Smith
Pictures by Roj Smith
Artist In Residence, Metal, Southend
In December 2017 I took part in my first section of a Residency at Metal in Southend. I proposed the Idea of Pier to Pier. Coming from Llandudno were we have the longest Pier in Wales To Southend’s longest pier in Britain. This was set in stone but on arrival and trip through London, I become captivated by the power of the Themes Estuary.
#ffloc Gorilla Projection
Emerging Pathways at Bodelwydden Castle
Here are couple of images from my Emerging Pathways Exhibition at Bodelwydden Castle. I Documented all the sign of small village Tremeirchion on the side of the Clwydian Range
i had a clear view of how I wanted the work to look by filling the wall as you walk into the space capturing the shear volume of the signs in the area
I think I captured all the signs there was just under 40 which coming up with the idea even I was shocked about
I think the two signs i’ve shown here are the news and oldest that i found. The above sign Pre date the standardisation of British Road Signs by the Worboys Committee of 1963.
ALAN WHITFIELD 