Future Archives: Heritage Seeds

Towards the end of last year Art Shell were asked by artists Kyle Legall, Gavin Porter, Imran Khan and Samatar Elmi if we could act as host for their Connect and Flourish Arts Council Wales funding application.

The artists’ idea was to form a Butetown-based creative collective and establish ‘guilds’ in music and dance, visual arts, film and spoken word and to create space and time to make new work with people in Butetown using the The Heritage & Cultural Exchange archive material as a jumping off point.

Art Shell submitted the application on the groups behalf in December 2020 and are pleased to announce that the funding bid was successful and the project is now active.

‘Future Archives: Heritage Seeds’ is a year-long project that supports the formation of a Butetown arts collective ‘Scribla’ & development of a close partnership with HEC: The Heritage & Cultural Exchange. The collective aim to activate and add to the archive, re-imagining ways of presenting the archive that tells the story of Butetown/Tiger Bay & immigration to Wales Each of the four lead artists will develop work in their fields of expertise, Music composition, Animation, Poetry, Film, Documentary and Theatre. Throughout the year Kyle, Imran, Sami and Gavin will create opportunities to collaborate with each other, as well as work with other artists and community members.

Samatar Elmi The project will enable Sam to explore in an artistic sense local stories and the importance of a historiography rooted in a grassroots approach. The development of a network of mutually-supportive creatives is empowering and liberates the artists through improved access to shared resources, particularly the digital communications technology required for sustainable and innovative responses to the restrictions of performance and audience engagement in a post-Covid environment. Sam hopes to connect with like-minded creatives on interdisciplinary productions. Sam is also keen to support emerging poets and writers in the wider artistic community, which in-turns feeds into the collective’s creative ecosystem. 

Imran Khan Over the course of the project Imran plans to create musical works and performances inspired by the Heritage and Cultural Exchange archive of Butetown. This is a collaborative project with local and international musicians to develop a digital based album celebrating the multicultural diversity of Butetown, both retrospectively and as it is today. Through the formation of a Music Guild, there will be a strong focus on Mentoring, Artist development, Networking and cultural Exchange for artists from, or with links to the community in Butetown, culminating in an album and show towards the end of the year.

Kyle Legall Kyle will be working on creating short stories for Radio Cardiff, inspired by Butetown’s rich heritage of the Docklands, using local people to voice the new script and working with local talent from the area over the coming months. As part of this process Kyle will explore Butetown’s extensive cultural archives to create documentary and an animation film, as well as giving people the opportunity to record interesting local stories. To reach more people in the area Kyle also plans to make a presence on the street of Butetown with new artworks.

Gavin Porter Gavin aims to create a series of documentaries, video art pieces and a live documentary as part of Future Archives, as well as contribute to the HEC archive by interviewing members of the Butetown Community. Gavin also aims to create opportunities to collaborate with other artists and community members

The project partners include Heritage and Cultural Exchange, Radio Cardiff, Glamorgan Archives, Wales Millennium Centre, National Theatre Wales.

The project is based in the Butetown community and there are opportunities for people living in or with a connection to Butetown to get involved. This involvement might be to develop or share creative / research skills or family history.  If you have a link to the area and want to find out more please email artshellcontact@gmail.com to be put in touch with the artists.

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