An evolving exhibition that began on the streets of Newtown in April 2025, moving into the gallery and developing (like a polaroid) over the summer months.
Oriel Davies Gallery, Everything Changes / Everything Stays the Same
The title for the exhibition came from a statement by the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, who in 1849 wrote “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – the more things change, the more they stay the same. This statement suggests a passive approach, indicating that we either opt not to change, believing that our actions won't make a difference, or we embrace change, understanding that without it, nothing will ever improve.
Photography allows us to see how things have changed, but also how things remain. Fundamentally as humans we remain the same, we want to spend time on our own, time with friends, doing things together, creating a nice community. We go shopping, we play sports, we listen to music, we like animals, we like to show our latest things, we create memories. Many of these will stay hidden for years until someone finds them one day and says look how young you were, there’s my relative who passed away years ago, that’s one of those thingummies that we used to have, do you remember that pet dog?
We gave copies of photos by Geoff Charles and Don Griffiths to Emma Beynon and Grug Muse. They then worked with local writers to explore what the images triggered for them. These pieces of writing will become part of the exhibition, but they were also sent to animated film maker, Gemma Green Hope, who has used them to create a new film, narrated by Casi Wyn. The writers have also been on a trip to the National Library where they had an introduction to the collections.
HASSAN, Mohamed, Portraits of young people created when Mohamed Hassan worked in primary schools in Newtown with Oriel Davies © Mohamed Hassan / Oriel Davies Gallery
HASSAN, Mohamed, Portraits of young people created when Mohamed Hassan worked in primary schools in Newtown with Oriel Davies © Mohamed Hassan / Oriel Davies Gallery
As part of the CELF development we commissioned photographer Mohamed Hassan to take portraits of people in Newtown today. This process was documented in a short film by Ellie Orrell. The work provides an interesting document of the everyday lives of people in the town.
We have also commissioned new writing from Dylan Huw and Jason Jones in response to the work of Tom Cardew (Machynys Forgets Itself) and Paul R Jones (Rites of Way). These works were shown as part of our Pop-Up series prior to closure for our capital building works as part of CELF.
To find out more, please head to the Oriel Davies Gallery website.
