Local heroes

The Butetown area of Cardiff was developed to house and service the workers attracted to the area by the shipbuilding yards and docklands. The docks were a major generator of employment and wealth for the area and by the outbreak of WWI, people from over fifty nations had settled in Butetown. In more recent years Butetown has provided a safe haven for refugees from places with Colonial ties such as Somalia and Sudan and is now home to people from 46 different nationalities. Formerly known as Tiger Bay, Butetown is imprinted upon the national psyche. However, today the area is much changed. The majority of the industry has disappeared and Butetown is now recognised as one of the most socio-economically deprived areas in Wales. Therefore, it is essential that the Loudoun Square Redevelopment Scheme – a £13m regeneration project in Butetown that will include film, media and cultural facilities for use by local people – is much more than a capital build project. To this end, Artist Janet Hodgson has been commissioned to create a participatory project and film installation, entitled Statues, for the new Loudoun Square Health Centre and Community Hub. The project addresses some of the key aims of the redevelopment, namely to develop a sense of ownership of the new facilities by local residents and to integrate the site into the wider Butetown area.

Statues aims to rework the idea of public statues and monuments which are traditionally representative images, cast in metal, of some worthy or notable person. The forces that make these works are often unseen or unknown. In short who is it by? And who is it for? The film is designed to unpack and examine these questions.
Together with local filmmaker Glen Biseker, Janet has set up ‘Butetown Heroes’, a small production company specifically for the project. They have spent the past few months talking to people from the local area about the people they would like to celebrate in the new film. Photographs of these local heroes outdoors, in and around Loudoun Square will be found and recreated in a moving film. The images will be brought to life by look-alikes dressed in costume, standing motionless in the streets exactly where the individuals were in the original photographs. The production team is currently liaising with community groups, historians, drama groups and anyone with an interest in film or the history of the area with a view to casting and crewing the film from local residents, alongside seasoned professionals and students from the local universities.

The process of making this work is open to the public and is playful and deliberately idiosyncratic, recognizing the impossibility of attempting to represent such a history in one artwork. Through re-making images from the past, the work also acknowledges the change that time makes to a place like Butetown. The film focuses on the local hero and seeks to recognize and celebrate the people’s history of Butetown in all its complexity and diversity.

Ostensibly this work evokes and celebrates the memories of the community but it is also about legacy. It will act as a celebratory launch film for the Loudoun Square Redevelopment and provide an introduction to, and inspiration for, how its new film and media facilities may be used. It will give people the opportunity to become involved in the production of a film and to learn and develop skills that may be applied in the Creative Industries as well as making links with the wider film and visual arts community in Cardiff and South Wales and existing local filmmakers. In this way, the project will contribute to building up the capacity of Butetown community members to become involved in the redevelopment of Roath Basin close by, which will transform the last major derelict site in the Inner Harbour area of Cardiff Bay to create over 1,000 new homes and more than 1 million sq. ft. of commercial development space, mostly targeted at the media, creative and life sciences sectors of the economy.