At a spectacular event at the Wales National Air Show in Swansea today, artist Marc Rees, launched his project ADAIN AVION, the Wales winner of the £230,000 commission for Artists taking the lead, a project at the heart of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, and will feature in the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad.
In the summer of 2012, Marc will become temporary custodian of an extraordinary artwork; a mobile arts space, social sculpture and travelling time capsule created from the recycled and transformed fuselage of an abandoned DC9 aeroplane by Spanish sculptor Eduardo Cajal.
ADAIN AVION will travel across Wales, 'nesting' in Swansea, Ebbw Vale, Llandudno and Llandow, between 24th June and 11th August 2012.
On arrival at each site, AVION will be pulled into place by a large team of residents from local sports clubs, youth groups and community organisations. It will then host a programme of cultural activities reflecting the distinctive history and culture of the area, involving contemporary artists and local communities, all curated by Rees.
ADAIN AVION will provide a succession of unique snapshots of Welsh culture featuring an extraordinary mix of local groups collaborating with renowned Welsh and international artists.
Highlights of the programme will include:
SWANSEA
Swansea-based visual artist Owen Griffiths will create The Vetch Veg Patch Project: an artist-led urban utopia. Transforming a section of the iconic former home of Swansea City AFC, The Vetch, (which if still standing, would have celebrated its centenary in 2012), Owen will create temporary vegetable patches with members of the local community over one growing season. This social artwork will culminate in a flower and produce show held around AVION’s nesting site in front of the Waterfront Museum, and a harvest supper for the local residents aboard the plane.
· Contemporary Swiss choreographer Phillipe Saier will take up residence in Victoria Park and collaborate with Swansea Bowling Club to devise a live performance on their green, which will premier as part of Taliesin Dance Days.
EBBW VALE
· Local visual artist Stefhan Caddick will produce Ghost Parade, a large-scale collaborative event along the final mile of AVION’s journey from Swansea to Ebbw Vale concluding at The Works, in front of the former Steel Works General offices. Ghost Parade is a nocturnal event involving outdoor projections, archival moving imagery and mass participation. Music will be provided by a brass band. It will take place 10 years, almost to the day, since the closure of the Steel Works, an occasion marked, in its day, by the remaining workforce who staged a symbolic march out of the gates; Ghost Parade celebrates a decade of transition in Ebbw Vale.
· Wales based Finnish choreographer Tanja Råman will present Cold Rolling. Drawing from the original architectural blueprints of the Ebbw Vale steel works, Råman will create a site-specific piece in which 10 dancers from Ballet Cymru and members of Ffin Dance respond to a live score by Ebbw Vale Male Voice Choir (which includes many former steel workers). Led by of BAFTA-winning composer John Hardy in collaboration with students from The Royal Welsh Collage of Music and Drama, this piece will replicate the former works’ industrial soundscape.
LLANDUDNO
Following on from his critically acclaimed performance in Rees' “For Mountain, Sand & Sea” for National Theatre Wales, Welsh choreographer Cai Tomos will create A Solo for Margot. Margot is the daughter of Will Catlin, the theatrical entrepreneur and owner of Llandudno's Arcadia Theatre, which once stood on the site of Venue Cymru. As a young girl, she was a keen roller-skater, and her father built her a rink, which was then converted into the theatre whose dance troupe, The Catlin Follies, she went on to join. The premise of the project is to re-visit Margot's memories of dancing and create a movement solo for an intimate audience inside the plane which will be located in front her former dancing haunt.
Visual artist Carwyn Evans will create a series of portraits of Llandudno residents and visitors in the style of an itinerant seaside photographer, culminating in two presentations under the title Cysgod [Shadow]. The first will use the empty frames in the late 1950s-style shelters that line Llandudno's promenade to display the photographic portraits. The second will be a modernist rendition of one of the shelters in Mostyn gallery featuring video portraits of people sitting by the adjacent seaside.
The work performed in each of these first three locations will be captured on film, which in turn will be presented in the fourth and final destination at the National Eisteddfod in Llandow, in the Vale of Glamorgan, in August 2012.
Curator Marc Rees said:
“ADAIN AVION will be a completely porous, portable public art project, celebratory and collaborative in all aspects. It will trigger the imagination with possibilities and people will want to make it their own. ADAIN AVION’s aim is to reflect the distinguishing qualities of the communities it visits and connect them directly to the heartbeat of London 2012 through participation, education and culture."
Sybil Crouch, Head of Cultural Services, Swansea University
“Having worked with Marc for nearly twenty years, it was a natural choice for Taliesin to come aboard as co-producer for Adain Avion. We are very excited to be part of the Cultural Olympiad and feel that Marc has landed upon a project that will truly have a lasting legacy for Wales.”
Adain Avion offers Wales a captivating artwork in 2012. It will be fascinating to follow the plane’s progress and placement in Wales in its various ‘nesting’ sites throughout the country. If one of London 2012 themes is about welcoming the world, then Adain Avion in all its dimensions has the potential to be the one of the most welcoming projects.
David Alston, Arts Director, Arts Council of Wales said:
“This is an ambitious and engaging project with all sorts of possibilities and dimensions now taking shape under the creative eye of Marc Rees, one of our most imaginative artists.”
Ruth Mackenzie, Director, Cultural Olympiad, said:
“Adain Avion will be a beautiful piece that will bring the London 2012 Festival alive across Wales in the summer of 2012. I’m delighted that people across the country will celebrate the Games coming to the UK by enjoying this extraordinary free event.”
Destination dates:
Swansea: 24 - 30 June 2012
Ebbw Vale: 1 – 7 July 2012
Llandudno: 8 - 14 July 2012
Llandow, The National Eisteddfod of Wales: 4 - 11 August 2012
For further information on ADAIN AVION, please contact either:
Ben Chamberlain at The Corner Shop PR on 020 7494 3665, email ben@thecornershoppr.com
or Catrin Rogers on 07812 190264, email catrinrogers@hotmail.com
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