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My People
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:: My People
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Exhibition of work by Elen Bonner.
Elen Bonner responds to the culture and community of contemporary rural Wales, often appropriating customs prevalent within this particular culture to use as a vehicle to discuss her own identity and that of those around her. My People is a body of work inspired by some of the most well known writings referencing this particular culture and community.
Published in 1862, George Borrow’s book Wild Wales, comprises the diary entries of the English travel writer as he travels through the rural landscape of Wales, encountering “its people, language and scenery”. Using Borrow’s musings as a source for investigation, the artist encourages us to re-evaluate our own perceptions of cultural identity by reframing his interpretations to include contemporary references.
The attack did much damage to Wales, despite everything, I do suspect?
Treachery of the Blue Books, R.J. Derfel 1854 is the title given to a film of a drama called Treachery of the Silly Assembly, written by the artist and performed on stage at Memorial Hall, Tregaron by the local Young Farmers Club. The work references the infamous Blue Books, i.e. the commission of enquiry report into the state of education in Wales. The work examines a community’s understanding of itself and questions the way in which it chooses to be portrayed.
When My People by Caradoc Evans was published in 1915, there was outrage at his portrayal of rural west Wales; his books were burned, his plays disrupted. The book’s dust jacket states that “the justification for the author’s realistic pictures of peasant life, as he knows it, is the obvious sincerity of his aim, which is to portray that he may make ashamed”. The slogans printed on the t-shirts exhibited are taken from the backs of t-shirts worn by young farmers when ‘on tour’. Displayed as posters, the young farmers are now confronted head on with the slogans they use to describe themselves. The option to turn the poster back into a t-shirt for continued use is offered by the paper tabs.
By looking at the interpretations of this community throughout history the artist questions who is most influential when determining how a culture is understood; is it the community itself that is responsible for its own cultural demarcation, or could it be the outside and it’s projections that are most influential when determining how a community is understood? The artist is obviously proud to be part of this culture and community, but is she also guilty in some way of contributing to the cultural typecast of this community as she comments on the identity of My People?
Friday, 12 March (6.30pm) - Saturday, 27 March
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