Jess Mahoney, Creative Cardiff Manager
Personally, my ‘Cardiff Culture Highlight’ can only be the truly magnificent Swn Festival. I’ve been going to Swn fairly regularly over the last fifteen years, but this 2022 edition felt like a glorious re-birth that saw the festival carve out a niche for itself as one of the UK’s foremost new music showcases. Traversing the city’s bustling grassroots venues armed only with an app, a wristband and an umbrella (it poured with rain) felt rather like a being in a ‘build your own adventure’ game where the rewards were unexpected sets of raw, thrilling and innovative new talent.
Filled with warmth, heart and authenticity, the ‘Swn 2022’ experience also showed off the city’s often surprising infrastructure to glorious effect. Jacob’s Market, for example, felt variously like a sweaty subterranean New York dive bar, your Nan’s living room or an Ibiza roof-top party palace, depending on which level you found yourself on. With homegrown talent, as well as a strong Welsh language contingent, on display alongside UK-wide and international artists, it felt uniquely ‘Cardiff’ - both reflective of the city’s burgeoning status as a breeding ground for new talent and in itself a compelling case to invest in and protect our music scene. And whilst I try not to pick favourites, on this occasion I can’t deny that local punk quintet Panic Shack totally stole my heart #heputthemilkinfirst. Roll on 2023!
Sara Pepper, Director
My cultural highlight of 2022 was the opportunity to re-engage with colleagues, contacts, friends and family at meetings, events and life happenings.
Living through a global pandemic has affected everything in our lives from job security to health and stress levels. I found the social isolation and lack of in person connectivity a challenge. I much prefer meeting and doing business in real life and have really appreciated the opportunity to engage with people again, to meet, network and to travel to enable that.
There is one standout event for me that did this in 2022. It was called ClwstwrVerse and was a 2 day showcase to share and celebrate the R&D projects enabled through the Clwstwr programme. It took place in City Hall in July and was an ambitious 2 day event featuring a range of demonstrations, talks, interactive workshops, experiments, exhibitions and a keynote. It brought together the Cardiff regional cluster to share, learn and celebrate the work undertaken over the previous 3 years and to consider what the future might look like collectively and individually in terms of R&D and the creative industries in this region. As well as attendees from across the cluster, we had colleagues from five European media clusters join us and reflect on what’s happening in our region and share interesting work from theirs. It embodied so much about the importance of coming together to share, learn, exchange, collaborate and ultimately celebrate the creative and cultural production that is happening in and around us.
Justin Lewis, Academic Lead and Co-founder
This year, being at any cultural event was a highlight. But one that stands out was the culmination of Galwad, held from dusk to darkness in the slate quarries above Blaenau Ffestiniog. The idea was ambitious, taking inspiration from Wales’s Well-Being of Future Generations Act and addressing the question at the heart of the climate crisis: how do we express the grim reality of climate change while maintaining hope for the future?
We arrived after a week of daily internet and social media content laying out the scenario: one of a groups of young friends from Swansea is contacted by her future self from 30 years hence. She learns how climate changes will disrupt her life and the life of her generation. While she grapples to cope with a future full of loss, she begins to understand how her actions can lead us to a kinder world. When her character steps from the online world into the fading light of a ramshackle outdoor set in Blaenau, she gives a compelling speech – informed by her future self - that brilliantly expresses both the consequences of failure to act and a vision of the better version of ourselves. Her speech found a way to walk that difficult tightrope between complacency and despair. It will remain long in the memory, and I hope, begin to inspire creative communication that might finally bring politicians and publics to take the radical steps needed to fix our crumbling Anthropocene.
Carys Bradley-Roberts, Communications and Engagement Officer
It’s hard to pick a single cultural ‘highlight’ of the year. I joined the Creative Cardiff team in April, which is certainly a personal highlight; it’s been fantastic meeting the creative community in Cardiff and re-engaging with the industry at in-person events.
There was a moment at Tafwyl 2022, standing near the stage in my raincoat shouting Swnami’s lyrics, where it hit me just how much I’d missed festivals and live music. The crowd was singing in unison, umbrellas abandoned and arms in the air; it was really special.
Since I moved to Cardiff in 2017, Tafwyl has been one of the highlights of my year. The free Welsh language music festival at Cardiff Castle opens Welsh culture and music to the whole of Cardiff in a way that feels meaningful and impactful. Seeing it fully return with an exciting line-up of music, comedy and panel events meant that, despite the torrential rain, I couldn’t stop smiling. It kicked off a brilliant summer of live music and cultural events in the city- diolch Tafwyl 2022!
Erykah Cameron, Student Producer
My 2022 highlight with Creative Cardiff has to be 5 minutes with coming to life! I am so proud that we managed to get it from a small idea in my brain onto peoples screens and that it has been received so well! It has been an incredible opportunity, I’m forever thankful to the team that we worked with to make it happen, and I can’t wait to continue developing the series in 2023!
