Swansea Fringe Festival and Newport College of Art

This week, Rebecca met with Robin Hall and David Hurn. 

Robin came to Swansea to work with the Open Cast Theatre, and later worked for the Swansea Fringe Festival for several years during the 1980s.  The festival brought many performers to the city, including the then-unknown comedians Paul Merton and Arthur Smith.  He worked closely with the performance artist Rob Con who was also the festival administrator in its first year.

David is a member of Magnum, the photographers cooperative, and founded the photography course at Newport College of Art nearly forty years ago.  He was also a colleague of the artist Keith Arnatt and taught Arnatt photography, and later curated an exhibition of Arnatt's work called 'I'm A Real Photographer'.

We would like to thank David and Robin for their time and contributing to our research.

Project featured on The Wire website

The project has been included by Rhodri Davies on his Wire magazine portal link (click the title to this blog entry and if should take you straight there).

Rhodri is featured in the 'Invisible Jukebox' section of the new edition of the magazine, and an MP3  of his installation room harp at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle is available here: http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/4675/

Research trip to London and interview with Mo Tingey

We spent much of the last week in London, visiting the archives at the Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and listening to a number of oral history interviews held at the National Sound Archive at the British Library.

We also interviewed Mo Tingey for the project.  Mo was one of the people who staged the Fluxus events at the Aberystwyth Arts Festival in 1968, along with Brian Lane - she was then known as Maurene Sandoe.  Mo brought along to the interview some beautiful leaflets and boxes that she had made back in the 1960s, containing paper dolls, small boxes that made sounds, sound scores and stage directions.  These were made in small numbers and sold to people, part of the idea about making art accessible and available to everyone.

We'd like to thank Mo for meeting with us and contributing to the project.

Group Interview 3 - Former Cardiff College of Art students

This week we met with four former students from Cardiff College of Art, as Cardiff School of Art & Design was then known. We were fortunate to be allowed to hold the interview at UWIC's Howard Gardens campus, where they had studied during the late 1960s and 1970s with (amongst others) Tom Hudson and John Gingell. A tour of the building prompted lots of memories from their student days.

 

We would like to thank Prof André Stitt, Debbie Savage and Nicola Brown for their help in arranging for us to use Howard Gardens. We'd also like to thank our interviewees, Colin Ainsworth, Tim Diggles, Suzy Peters and Mike Shaw, for travelling to Cardiff, lending us material from their personal archives, and for their memories and stories.

Interview with Sally Roberts Jones

Rebecca interviewed Sally Roberts Jones this week, about her memories of the Commonwealth Poetry Conference, which took place in Cardiff in 1965 as part of the Commonwealth Festival.  Poets and writers that attended the conference included Clive James and Les Murray of Australia, Alexander Trocchi, Brian Patten, Adrian Henri and George Macbeth. 

The Conference included a happening organised by Tom Hudson at Jackson Hall in Cardiff called 'Assembly Line' - this was possibly the first happening to take place in Wales, and among to participants was the American musician and composer Philip Corner.  We would love to hear from anyone who remembers the poetry conference or took part in 'Assembly Line' - email mail@performance-wales.org

Rebecca and Heike would like to thank Sally Roberts Jones for her sharing her time and memories with us.

Interview with David Briers

David Briers was the Visual Arts Organiser at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff between 1976 and 1984, responsible for programming the galleries.  Rebecca went to interview David this week his interest in performance art, and his time at Chapter. 

Among the artists that David invited to the centre was Nigel Rolfe, who had caused outrage in some areas of the press following his 'Towers' performance at the National Eisteddfod at Wrexham in 1977 (or as the Daily Mail put it, 'The Welsh art of paying an Irishman to demolish bricks with his head').

David invited Nigel Rolfe to do a performance of the 'Towers' piece, and also one called 'Treatment of Individual Parts' (see above and right - copyright Steve Benbow).

If you remember seeing this, or any other performance work in Wales during the 1960s and 1970s we would love to hear from you.

Heike and Rebecca would like to thank David Briers for his help with the project.

Presentation at the ICA's Live Weekends

Heike will be presenting the project at the ICA's Live Weekends this weekend, together with artist Ivor Davies.

'What's Welsh for Performance?' Archiving the history of performance art in Wales 1965-2010 - featuring Ivor Davies in conversation with Heike Roms on Destruction in Art London / Edinburgh / Durham / Bristol / Swansea 1966-1969

22 May 2010 - 2.20-4.45pm, Lower Gallery, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art, The Mall - LondonSW1Y 5AH
Admission Free
As part of ICA's LIVE WEEKENDS: Futures and Pasts - curated by Tim Etchells
More information on the event here:
http://www.ica.org.uk/24606/Talks/Live-Weekends-Futures-and-Pasts.html

Interview with Isabel Hitchman

Rebecca interviewed Isabel Hitchman today - Isabel worked at the Arts Council of Wales during the 1970s and was involved in the founding of the Oriel Gallery.  Along with holding regular exhibitions, Oriel was also a book shop and, on occasion, provided a space for performance.  This photo shows a performance by former Cardiff School of Art and Design students Marty St James and Anne Wilson, called 'Perfect Moments'. 

We would like to thank Isabel for her hospitality and her time, and for helping with our research. 

Interview with Wyndham Heycock - Barry Summer School

Heike and Rebecca met Wyndham Heycock, co-director of Barry Summer School with the artist Leslie Moore, from 1962-1973. It was during this period that the school reached its peak, attracting artists and musicians from across the world to teach at Barry, including George Brecht, John Epstein, Roland Miller, Terry Setch, Harry Thubron, Ernest Zobole and jazz musicians including Larry Adler. We'd like to thank Wyndham Heycock, and his wife Sally, for their help with the project.

The photo below is of a group of students listening to Tom Hudson speak at the Summer School around 1965 (click on the photo to enlarge it); if you can identify any of the people in the picture, or you attended any of the art or music courses during the 1960s and early 1970s - please email us at mail@performance-wales.org

Future Presentation - London July 2010

Heike will be presenting a paper based on her oral history work at the annual conference of the Oral History Society:

"Performing an Oral History of Performance Art in Wales" - "[Record] [Create] Oral History in Art, Craft and Design (Oral History Society Annual Conference 2010"
Victoria & Albert Museum London, 2+3 July 2010