Exhibitions

We will be creating four exhibitions throughout our delivery in partnership with community groups.

Mynavon

Our first exhibition is a digital exhibition created by young people and The Hwb. It is called Mynavon.

Young people of Blaenavon came together to explore the areas history and what it meant to them. This included meeting with local community groups, visiting the areas historical buildings and working with Blaenavon Male Voice Choir.

This resulted in the creation of Mynavon, a poem read to the song of Myfanwy as sung by Blaenavon Male Voice Choir.

The full exhibition included; CD covers created by Blaenavon Heritage VC School and a series of photos taken by The Hwb.

The digital exhibition is available on you tube: https://youtu.be/vxqliv99Cxc

We were able to play the video to all primary school pupils at Ygsol Bryn Onnen and Blaenavon Heritage VC School as part of a school assembly. All pupils were presented with a booklet of the poem in Welsh and English.

Blaenavon Townscape Heritage Town Tapestry: A Memory Map of Broad Street

Our second exhibition was created by Head4Arts and focused upon using creative materials to engage with the over 65 age group. This resulted with the creation of “Blaenavon Townscape Heritage Town Tapestry: A Memory Map of Broad Street”.

The Tapestry was created through exploring their relationship with Blaenavon’s town centre by focusing on everyday experiences of shopping in Broad Street over the years.

This interactive memory map of Broad Street mixes specific moments in time, and different perspectives. Some of the shops no longer exist but have been reimagined from descriptions. These glimpses into the town’s social history, have been digitally embedded into the fabric of the artwork providing an audio record of memories.

Initiated before Covid, the project has had to adapt to circumstances, using craft packs to enable participants to help make parts of the tapestry. The resulting ‘living tapestry’ embodies the work of a community living in isolation but working together to preserve and share collective memories of Blaenavon’s commercial history.

Several community groups worked with Head4Arts to create the tapestry, including:

• Blaenavon Seniors
• The Residents of Baker Street House & Bron Afon staff
• Blaenavon Intergenerational Group
• Arthur Jenkins Care Home residents & staff
• The Blaenavon Heritage History Group

Quotes:

"I think it was absolutely fantastic! Especially since this was done during the COVID pandemic, it has come together really well and is a brilliant visual and verbal aid".

"Amazing - fantastic resource for the community. Product is of excellent quality. Fascinating. Will help teach my young people".

Blaenavon Heritage History Group - A Photo Exhibition of Broad Street

Our third exhibition was created by Blaenavon Heritage History Group. Initially this exhibition was to be a traditional photo exhibition. However, this grew to include the creation of information folders providing further information pertaining to the Towns history.

The folders were presented to various community venues and businesses including Blaenavon Community Musuem, The Lion Hotel, Libraries, Blaenavon World Heritage Centre, and Café to create an information resource. Additional folders were created and issued to local primary and secondary schools; these folders included additional ‘inserts’ to encourage pupils to undertake their own research of the area.

Blaenavon Digital Tapestry

This initiative builds upon the ‘Blaenavon Townscape Heritage Town Tapestry: A Memory Map of Broad Street’ exhibition held in 2022.

Utilising the original stories collected for the tapestry, this new digital and audio exhibition has incorporated additional research carried out by the Blaenavon Heritage Centre History Group and The Blaenavon Museum. It brings art, memories and research together interactively as an engaging, accessible, easy to navigate resource for people to explore the trading history of Broad Street, Blaenavon and to discover the layers of social history and its contemporary relevance.

The Digital Tapestry is located and free to access in the Blaenavon World Heritage Centre, Church Road, Blaenavon

The original tapestry is now located in the Arthur Jenkins Care Home and used as a memory tool.