Stefhan Caddick: Artwork & Projects

I’m currently in Nairobi in Kenya with Paul Granjon and Peter Hathaway, for Maker Faire Africa, on behalf of bloc: Creative Technology Wales. Maker Faires are like science faires for DIY technology and the African version is billed as a ‘celebration of African ingenuity, innovation and invention’. bloc ran a Maker Faire as part of May You Live in Interesting Times and commissioned several practitioners for the festival, so this year they’ve sent a contingent to Kenya to continue the dialogue started in 2009.

At the Faire itself I’m going to be working with Nairobits Digital Design School, doing surgeries for Makers about marketing their wares online for free, but in the meantime I’m helping Paul out with his ‘Nairobi Solar Machine‘ project, working with students from FabLab in Nairobi University. This feeds nicely into some work I’ll be doing with arduino and micro generation in the autumn, as part of Powys’ Chance to Create scheme.

The three of us are writing a blog over at WordPress, although to be fair, Peter is the main contributor, by quite a long way.

BBC Wales have posted an article about The Bogey Road project on their website, including a clip of one of the Ffos-y-fran/1984 Miner’s Strike sequences. The article is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/southeastwales/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8922000/8922440.stm

Update: The film in it’s entirety is also now available in the Project section.

A new short film, The Bogey Road will be premiered at St Aidan’s Church, Butetown, Rhymney, Caerphilly NP22 5QH on Thursday 12th August 2010 from 3.00pm. The premiere will be combined with the unveiling of Simnai Dirdro (Twisted Chimney) by artist Brian Tolle. The unveiling will start at 2pm just to the north of the village.

The Bogey Road is a short film, which uses archive, found and ‘orphan’ film, to create a series of vignettes that bring the archive into a sometimes uncomfortable collision with the present.

The commission was to make a short film in and around Butetown, an unfinished ‘model’ village built to house iron workers in the 1820’s, in the Upper Rhymney Valley, Caerphilly, just off the A465 Heads of the Valleys road. Using archive and found moving image material, the film replays moments from the archival footage in locations which resonate, or jar with, the original material. The process required working closely with local residents, filming in people’s homes as well as pubs, churches, the Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil and the Ffos-y-fran land reclamation site at Cwmbargoed.

The original footage was contributed by local residents and historians, Chapter Video Workshop, the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales and the Archive at BBC Cymru Wales.

For further information and press images please contact: Senior Project Manager, Emma Price at Safle on Tel No: 0845 241 3684 E-mail: emma.price@safle.com

Download The Bogey Road Press Release