The Valleys Re-told project is a co-created art and heritage engagement programme with a core emphasis on discovering and sharing new knowledge and interpretations with people from the South Wales Valleys. The long-term vision is to bring together a national collection of art that reflects the people, culture, and identity of the south Wales Valleys: a treasured accessible resource for the future. The funding has been provided by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund – delivered by the Museums Association.
Lee Gardens Pool Charity memory Trip to Barry Island July 2023
Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales has extended this collaboration beyond the network of schools and communities and sought to consolidate this vision with Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery in Merthyr Tydfil and Cynon Valley Museum Trust in Aberdare, two well-established museums situated within the heart of the south Wales Valleys. Together the partnership has created an openness towards sharing collections, developed an advocacy strategy for the duration of the engagement and cultivated a trusting working relationship with communities and schools.
Who engaged with the Valleys Re-Told project?
During the first phase of launching the project Klara Sroka, Community Engagement and Learning Officer at Amgueddfa Cymru, received training on the current collections, conservation, and security procedures/policies at all three museums. By assembling a digital collection of artworks from all three museums, amassing over 645 items, Klara has made these artworks accessible to the recruited engagement groups.
Valleys art collection activity with pupils at Pen-y-Dre High School June 2023
Valleys Art and Nature Stories painting session with a class of year 4/5 children at Dowlais Primary School
Dowlais Primary pupils’ trip to Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery
Dowlais Visual Art exhibition at the Engine House Dowlais, 2023
With assured guidance from Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery and Cynon Valley Museum, Klara was keen to ensure that the selected engagement groups for this project were represented from a wide demographic as well as from various valleys. The named groups span from early years, Key Stage 3–5, 40+ professionals, to older aged people, all of whom have been bringing with them valuable insights to this inspiring collaboration. The groups that have already been involved are, Lee Gardens Pool Committee in Penrhiwceiber, Dowlais Primary School, Coleg Y Cymoedd in Aberdare, Pen-Y-Dre High School, Dowlais Visual Art Group, The Creative Hub, Rhondda Cynon Taf Youth Engagement and Participation Service, and Merthyr College. These groups have been creating artworks, interpretations, holding public events, organising archives, and sharing new stories throughout the course of this project.
In addition to this activity, Klara has been working with new groups on collecting interpretations and stories on LGBTQ+ lives within the valleys’ collections, which began in June 2023.
Which activities were developed as part of the Valleys Re-Told project?
At the start of 2022 Klara developed a series of bespoke engagement activities to capture new knowledge, interpretations, and stories with all the selected groups. One activity is ‘The Tablecloth Gallery’ where participants from Penrhiwceiber and Aberdare were asked to identify the most relevant artworks that truly reflected their own known histories and cultural identities from a small selection of items from National Museum Cardiff. These sessions were tailored around a relaxed social environment, where stories were captured and documented, and participants were encouraged to hand write any notable memories directly onto their Tablecloth. The aim was to invite all members to not only share new insights, but to empower them to experience curating their own valleys art collections within their own communities.
Tablecloth Gallery activity with participants of Lee Gardens Pool Charity in Penrhiwceiber
In order to engage younger audiences, Klara has developed a ‘Valleys Art and Nature Stories’ with a class of year 4 and 5 children at Dowlais Primary School during April 2022. This has offered the opportunity for children to learn about Welsh landscape artists whose work showcases the rural magnificence of the Valleys. The children were invited to curate their own exhibition using artworks from Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery collections and toured the galleries sharing their experiences of these chosen items.
How is the National Collection shared with communities?
Dowlais Visual Art Group Celebration event, Dowlais Library, with Merthyr Blues painting day loan
Dowlais Visual Art exhibition at the Engine House Dowlais, 2023
Dowlais Visual Art exhibition at the Engine House Dowlais
The project has various objectives around sharing collections, one of them being loaning artworks from the art stores in Cardiff and showing them at important locations within the communities in the Valleys. In May 2023 a significant painting by Heinz Koppel, Merthyr Blues (1954), came to Dowlais Library for a celebration day event, where Dowlais Visual Art Group had been responding to it by creating new interpretations and artworks of their own. The success of this engagement meant that the group created a new collection of their own paintings, prints and drawings which culminated in a public art exhibition at the Engine House in Dowlais, where 7 artworks from the collections at Amgueddfa Cymru were loaned to the group during August 2023.
Reaching wider audiences
Alongside the outreach work, Klara has been developing the project’s presence on various digital platforms. She has established a webpage linking with both partnership museums and created a series of 10 vlogs which allows viewers to see behind the scenes of a working gallery, meet the partner museums, watch children curate their own collections, and view all the art exhibitions made by participants. Participants have continually been enthused by the Tablecloth Gallery sessions and have voluntarily offered personal items and photographs to share amongst themselves, enriching the connections and rooting the project at the heart of these communities.
What next for the Valleys Re-Told project?
Issac from Lee Gardens Pool Charity learning to scan photos for the group’s archive account with Peoples Collection Wales.
Klara has enlisted the expertise of People’s Collection Wales, who have been supporting these communities with training and will be skilled up to archive and document their own items for their continued legacies towards unearthing new knowledge and interpretations for this art collection.
In the spring of 2024, Lee Gardens Pool Committee hosted their Art Trail within their village, where 19 items from our art and industry collections were displayed within 3 unique buildings. This was co-curated, with the group delivering various events throughout the duration of their public art trail schedule.
Further research into exploring LGBTQ+ stories and interpretations within the valley's art collections will be continuing with various youth groups across Merthyr and the Cynon Valley in the final phase of engagement, and as the project nears its completion, all of the new interpretations which have been exchanged over the past 2 years will be embedded within various platforms for public access.
Klara Sroka was appointed as Community Engagement and Learning Officer at National Museum Cardiff in October 2021, she joined the museum after a 16-year career in teaching to lead this project and is a practicing community participatory artist who graduated with a Masters in Fine Art in 2021. Klara has now started a new role at Cyfarthfa Museum and Art Gallery as Arts and Exhibition Co-ordinator.