Gruff Rhys

Gruff
Rhys

Gruff Rhys, Musician

Unit in the Morgan Arcade, Cardiff

00:00 / 01:25

Scene from a memory about an empty shop space in a closed down arcade in Cardiff, Wales

A large collection of signs and placards seen from the back in golden hour lighting, 35mm

A vast empty building on an empty street in Cardiff, Wales, 35mm

Close up of optimistic placards from protests, seen through a net curtain

It was a recent event where I was given an empty shop in a temporarily closed down arcade in the city center of Cardiff, Wales to put on an exhibition that nobody would see. And I amassed a few hundred signs that I’d been collecting, well, creating, for the last few years. I was in this space, it’s called Morgan Arcade. A lot of these signs and commands and cue cards that I was amassing and putting up on the walls were using the language of protest. So in this empty space, building an exhibition that nobody would ever see, you know, I was reflecting on a sense of history that have been written in response to placards and political language, you know, whether it’s appropriate to use absurdity and comedy, in, in such sobering times.

Gruff Rhys, musician
Unit in the Morgan Arcade, Cardiff