Two branch members, Mo Wilson and Brian Morgan, have been working with
social housing tenants in Cardiff on an Arts Council of Wales funded
project.

The project involved helping tenants take photographs and record
personal stories using professional equipment. The outcome was opened as
an exhibition in April at Cardiff’s Butetown History and Arts.

This initiative evolved from an earlier one undertaken by Mo, also
funded by the Arts Council of Wales, which involved making portraits of
elderly luncheon club members and taping life stories. This body of
work is now held at Wyndham Street Centre, Riverside, Cardiff where the
photographs and printed texts from the interviews are exhibited framed
side-by-side.

Taff Housing Association, the main non-local-authority social housing
provider in Cardiff west approached Mo initially to take photographs for
them but she suggested an application to the arts council for a project
similar to Wyndham Street Centre’s. Mo asked partner Brian (chair of
the branch) to assist with the project.

They worked with 20 tenants, initially drawn from Taff Housing
Association, but later tenants from other housing bodies joined in.
Participants were paired when ever possible with fellow tenants, taking
photographs of each other and telling their stories to their partner in
the project. Every story was transcribed and edited down to
approximately 500 words for printing and laminating alongside the
photograph of the story-teller. In some cases contributors had a poem
they wrote laminated with their photograph.

The exhibition runs until May 11th at the Butetown History and Arts
Centre and arrangements are in hand to transfer it to another venue
afterwards. A selection of images and texts from the project are being
progressively loaded onto websites hosted by Taff Housing Association
and the BBC.

Links:
http://www.taffhousing.co.uk/news/newsfocu.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/
Brian Morgan