Hip-hop is all about community. Supporting each other, working together, pushing each other’s boundaries and growing together. It’s also about competition – against each other, against another crew, against the world. You have to be extremely humble, honest and brave to set yourself up to battle, to put yourself out there and potentially fail so publicly. But by failing we can learn, we can develop, grow and accept our weaknesses, to build on them, and become stronger and more creative. Here is where it’s vital to have people around to nourish and to be honest with you, to encourage your growth and help you lick your wounds.

I was lucky enough to be a part of the Cardiff Bboy scene at a time when it was strong – when a regular training session once a week, brought together bboys from different crews, to train together, sort out their differences and build. Over the years I have, for many reasons pulled back from training, and my focus has been more on painting. Recently though, I have more of an urge to dance again, thanks to Rachel Pedley (Avant Cymru). It’s refreshing to train with somebody whose approach is so different to mine. Her background is in theatre, ballet, contemporary and Hiphop dance and so there is no pressure for my movements to be strictly ‘bboy’. My focus has also moved away from battles which has also taken away that pressure.

Cardiff has a reputation for its Hiphop scene being well integrated – bboys, dj’s, writers and rappers all rubbing shoulders at nights out. Again I’m slightly removed from this scene now, but somebody who is pulling it all together again for me is Rufus Mufasa. She has somehow managed to get me to perform lyrics publicly – something I never thought would happen, even though I’ve been writing since I was a teenager. Her solid reassurance at pushing boundaries has given me the support I’ve needed to create in new ways, and to trust my instincts and follow my heart. I’ve also felt brave enough to try new things in public without being scared of messing up – my foray into loop pedal use has been bumpy, but we’re getting there. Hiphop is so much more than any of us realise, we just need to be open and allow the culture to be open – Hiphop is based on play and experimentation.

Collaborating with other people is truly important to me at the moment. As well as linking to paint walls, I’ve also started linking with other artists on canvas. This gives a bit more time and headspace to think things through, and work more closely together, which can translate to a closer creative partnership on the wall. As well as working in this way with Sadsak, I’m collaborating with Rosie Skribblah, who is also schooling me on the ‘art’ world from which I have always felt so far removed.

Opening up more as an artist has brought me so many more opportunities. The next few months I have loads coming up – new collabs, shows and performances, and so many wonderful people to meet and share with.

You can catch me and/or my work at:

1×1 Art Exhibition (Aures London), 23rd February – one night only! 6pm-12am, Leake Street Arches, Leake Street, London
An expanded view of drawing (Arts and Education Network), 5-26 March, Riverfront, Newport
International Women’s Day Swansea exhibition (Women’s Arts Association), 8-19th March, Cinema & Co., Swansea. I’ll be showing a collaboration with Rosie Scribblah. For the opening event on the evening of Thursday 8th, Myself, Rufus Mufasa and Rachel Pedley (Avant Cymru) will be performing.
International Women’s Day Cardiff exhibition (Women’s Arts Association), 3rd-23rd March, Llanover Hall, Cardiff. Myself and Rufus will be opening the exhibition on Friday 9th 6.30-8.30pm.
International Women’s Day Barry exhibition (Women’s Arts Association), 3rd March-28th April, Art Central, Barry. Opening event Saturday 10th.
Piano’s for High Street/ Station to the Sea (Higher Street International & Volcano Theatre), 28th March, Swansea Station. This collaboration with Mark and Nazma (Higher Street), will see the decoration of a piano and a new performance with Rufus, based around the history of the pottery used to decorate it.
Tongue Tied (Write a note), 6th April, 7-10pm, The Talking Heads, Southampton. Me and Rufus will be performing extracts from our ‘Landmarks’ installation.
Affordable Street Art Fair (Peaceful Progress), 7th April, 5pm-12.30am, The Boiler House, Cardiff. I’ll be showing new work alongside Sadsak and other contributors to Cardiff’s Street Art and Graffiti scene.
Landmarks (Maindee Library), 21st April, 4-5.30pm and 7.30-9pm, Maindee Library, Newport. £5/ £3 concessions. This installation, by myself and Rufus Mufasa, was first shown at Made In Roath Festival, with thanks to Articulture. ‘Landmarks’ explores ‘nature’ – words including acorn and ivy that have been removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. For this edition we will be collaborating with Marion Cheung, whose ‘Lost Connections’ paintings also inspired the content for ‘Landmarks’.

As we approached the ‘Palm Mar’ archway in our taxi from the Airport, I was struck by how separate the town was from the next built up area. It feels isolated and unfinished.  I convinced a security guard for one of the incomplete apartment buildings on the outskirts of Palm Mar to let me look around one of the blocks, which had been started in 2007, and who knows when it will be finished – apparently the lack of movement is due to money and politics.

There are empty buildings all over the island, not only half-built, but ones which had once been in use and fallen on hard times, now left to crumble. Yet alongside these, there was a flurry of new building work happening elsewhere in the town, a strange juxtaposition.

The only bars and restaurants I came across felt as though they were only for tourists. This strange atmosphere isn’t something I’ve experienced before, usually holidaying in our camper van on the coast of Wales, or visiting family in Spain. My wandering uncovered no local shops or culture, but lots of abandoned buildings, both in the town and on the mountain.

A week wasn’t long enough to fully explore, and I’m leaving feeling relaxed and rejuvenated, but uncomfortable about the unsustainability of this kind of tourism. I believe there have been some changes to laws around development here, which may impact on the ‘vibe’ of the tourist resorts, but for now, the German Tapas and British pubs reign free.

10 years of concrete dropped onto the rocks,
Endless rocks watch.
Soft dates crushed underfoot,
and you avoid eye contact with my awkward other-ness.

For whom do the pine forests store their wealth?

Complex crumbling concrete counter-culture,
Arab architecture and foreign food.
Sun-seekers dipping their pork-pink toes, and the sea breathes deeply,
forever.

Check out the walls page to see some pieces from this holiday here.

When I first moved to Cardiff in 2005, I was super excited to discover Cathays and Central Youth and Community Centre. I got involved in the music youth club, quickly progressing to work in the open access club as well as the inclusive youth provision and a project for young people not attending school.

This background in youth work has instilled a strong belief that young people are vital to the health and wellbeing of our community. Too often the views, actions and abilities of our young people are not taken seriously, and they are unable to contribute in a meaningful way, to shaping the world in which they live.

LCS Creative Collaboration Project with Radyr High School.

I have been a Creative Agent and Practitioner for the Arts Council Lead Creative Schools programme, working with schools to develop creative projects with young people at their heart. I have also worked with youth organisations including Voices From Care, Autism Puzzles, Newport City Council Youth Service and Cardiff Youth Offending Service.

For a long time community groups and organisations including the police, probation, schools etc. have seen the potential for utilising spray-paint and ‘graffiti’ art for engaging communities. Very often though an artist will be employed for a very short space of time, and will drop in, and drop right back out again at the end of the project. If graffiti is to be useful in providing an alternative path there needs to be sufficient thought about the bigger picture.

Whenever I’m asked to do a workshop, I begin questioning… Why? What will happen when I’m gone? Who else is involved? And most importantly, what is the context – what’s the local graffiti scene like?

Writing graffiti gives a voice. It adds colour and character where there was none before. It makes people ask difficult questions – Who did that? Why?

When working in a community it’s important to involve local people as an integral part of the process, so that they can carry on once I’ve left. And I’ll ALWAYS push for a legal wall, to provide an alternative to illegal graffiti. Legal walls allow development of skills and techniques, a place to learn and grow, and a place to meet and connect with the wider community.

 

Cardiff’s Millenium Walkway Graffiti Hall of Fame

It was a real treat to spend a day in the woods with my good friend and co-conspirator Rufus Mufasa. We’ve begun lots of chats about developing our combined practice, but life always cuts them short.

We walked and talked, sat and talked, listened and observed, absorbed and explored.

An abandoned building with potential to become a site-specific performance stage was our starting point and we put words on paper, paint on wall and talked about ideas for sound creation.

We listened to the woods, and they cradled us to hold discussions which brought tears, fears and by-gone years to the surface.

Lost in the woods – words removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary

This graveyard for words removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary reminded me of a quote I’d read only that morning by an artist called Cattle:

Graffiti, like disease, is metastatic. Writing on walls highlights a building’s ageing process; with landlords actively opposed to graffiti, their attempts to cover the marks with bad colour swatches actually highlight the existence of graffiti. Graffiti is like lush green ivy on a wall.

We walked and talked our way to another abandoned building, this one almost completely re-claimed by ivy and all natures greenery. Our immense concrete contribution will one day be just another layer in the earth’s crust.

Big thanks to Articulture for making this day happen – it’s led to a piece which will be on show for Made in Roath at Inkspot next month – Monday 16th– 8pm, Thursday 19th– 8pm, Saturday 21st– 6pm&8pm. We also hope to develop an outdoor piece to show at festivals next year, so watch this space…

Cattle quote from ‘Graffiti World, Thames & Hudson, by Nicholas Ganz’.

After a long and drawn out process, Cardiff Council has seen sense and will be returning the Millenium Walkway Hall of Fame to Cardiff’s graffiti artists.

Past, Unity ‘save our wall’

This hoo-ha began back in March when I set up a petition to stop one of Cardiff’s only legal walls being sold off for advertising:

1,178 people signed the petition, but It was thought that advertising along this stretch of wall could bring in £100,000 of well-needed funds for the city and a new location would need to be found.

The new location was decided on, at Callaghan Square – not quite so peaceful – surrounded by traffic, but still a safer space than most graffiti spots, and easy for visitors from outside the city to get to. Finally though, it has been agreed that it makes more sense for the original wall to be re-instated.

The space has hosted a number of jams, including the ‘Back to Nature’ jam for International Women’s day:
I look forward to seeing many more events to come once the Council’s own branding is removed from the area.

Thanks Barry Diamond for this epic panorama image of the wall before it was covered up in April:

Related articles:

Knitting & Graffiti… Good for our mental health (millimagic)

Petition to save Cardiff’s graffiti ‘hall of fame’ from Champions League final adverts (The Cardiffian)

Tongwynlais Resident Starts Petition to Save Cardiff Graffiti Landmark (Tongwynlais.com)

Building a wall (millimagic)

Whistle-stop tour (millimagic)

The Writing’s on the Wall (Diff Graff)

RIP Cardiff’s Millenium Walk Graffiti Wall (We Are Cardiff)

Millennium Walk Away (Diff Graff)

A graffiti wall ban on Cardiff’s Millennium Walkway comes into force ahead of Champions League final (Wales Online)

No news = good news (millimagic)

Cardiff has a new graffiti wall and work has already started (walesonline)

I love Cardiff Council (millimagic)

Petition: Save Cardiff Millennium Walkway Graffiti Hall of Fame (change.org)

 

 

 

 

From 10th June for 9 days, I walked and talked to community projects from Llanwrtyd Wells to Penarth. I met such inspiring people, and have come through it feeling invigorated. I kept a video diary each day…

On the last day a lovely chap from Melbourne, Courtney, followed us about with his fancy-pants camera:

Find out more about the Great Big Walk and Eden Project here.

The Great Big Walk was inspired by the Great Get Together, organised by Jo Cox’s family. Jo’s life was taken last year, and her statement that we have far more in common than divides us stayed with me the whole time I was talking to all the amazing people we met on this walk. There are people across the whole of the UK, and across the world, working together to make their communities strong.

Along my way I began picking little bunches of flowers. It’s something my mum Latifah used to do, and I found it a nice way to mark the end of a walk, either passing on the flowers to somebody, or leaving them somewhere. I picked flowers for my mum on our walk through the woods to the Sea at Pembrey, which I let go into the sea for her, along with a massive release of tears and grief which I didn’t realise was still there inside me.

When Lowri introduced me to a lady at the Adamsdown Big Lunch, who had put together a bunch of flowers for Jo Cox it was so fitting with my journey I felt a bit adrift, until my focus was gently brought back again with some watermelon from Vaida – thank you x

The lady with the flowers is called Dance. I’d just been dancing my sox off to the fantastic samba band, and had a couple of nice exchanges with some of the younger locals, who had started out so shy, but joined in with gusto and then got on the mic to beat-box our departure. Dance had been overwhelmed by the fact that her daughter had not only been taught in school about Jo Cox, but had felt so moved by her that she’d come home to make sure her mother also knew how inspiring she was. They had put together a bunch of roses and brought them to the Big Lunch in Jo’s memory, and she passed them on to me.

I felt honoured to carry these beautiful flowers with me for the final day of the walk, to set them in the sea at Penarth, remembering Jo and all that she stood for. Andrew Carnegie (below) penned a poem which he read as we walked into Penarth, releasing the tears I’d held for Jo, and for the horrific tragedy at Grenfell Tower, reminding me of the power of poetry to connect far deeper than mere conversation.