Thanks to Zoë Gingell for this guest post.
Well it’s a massive month for the arts in Cardiff coming up, with the Cardiff Contemporary Festival (Oct 3rd – Nov 9th) acting as an umbrella for all manner of mini-festivals that celebrate the exciting range of cultural activity within our city: Artes Mundi, Outcasting, and Made in Roath all taking place within this six week period.
At the heart of Roath is the MADE gallery, a space gaining and building its reputation as a gallery and local arts venue – one that is fast being sought out. In a bit of a coup, this Roath gallery has lured Cardiff Arts Collective out of the city centre shopping arcades and to the area around Albany Road.
An annual event, Cardiff Open seeks to showcase the best best practice by artists and craftspeople working in the South Wales area, an aim which is totally in sync with MADE’s aims all year round: MADE is an acronym for MAKERS, ARTISTS, DESIGNERS, ENTERPRISE. MADE is also seeking to provide a sustainable platform for Cardiff based practitioners, but also firmly rooted in the venue itself, which acts a welcoming and accessible interface between the public and cultural experience, and that is why there is food available as well as art.
It demonstrates the need for such spaces to exist within a city, beyond pop up shows. A place that is both platform, springboard, and nurturing environment for the creative worlds of art and community to co-exist and sustain each other, a real interface within our increasingly digitally absorbed world. In addition to this, MADE schedule regular Affordable Art Wall shows three times a year to encourage the public to invest in art to hang in their homes, encouraging a whole new wave of art collectors. The fact that people are choosing to buy original works by local artists, often as first time buyers, gives us a real kick.
There has been a real momentum around the public wanting to engage with, and collect, unique well-crafted goods and art, as well as public participation and engagement, demonstrated by the success of the annual Made in Roath Arts Festival.
This year’s Cardiff Open exhibition promises to be a highlight of the contemporary festival, with interactive residencies over three weeks, housed in the former Blockbusters on Albany Road, alongside the very best emerging and well respected artists there and at the MADE gallery.
Roath is now being recognised as claiming a serious foothold in the cultural consciousness of the city-wide celebration of the arts.
Zoë Gingell, Curator and Co-director of MADE gallery
Cardiff Open 2014 venues:
Blockbuster 50-52 Albany Rd Roath Cardiff CF24 3RR &
Cardiff MADE 41 Lochaber St Roath Cardiff CF24 3LS
7 October – 1 November 2014
10am-5pm Tuesday-Saturday & 11am-4pm Sunday 19 October
Private View: 6-8pm Friday 10 October at both locations
Find Cardiff MADE on Twitter @CardiffMADE and Facebook
Find Cardiff Arts Collective on Twitter @CdfArtsColl and Facebook
Find Cardiff Open on Twitter @cardiffopen and Facebook
