Amgueddfeydd, Arddangosfeydd a Digwyddiadau

Here at St Fagans, many of our curators have been travelling the length and breadth of Wales co- producing audio-visual content for the new galleries.

Last week, my colleague Dafydd Wiliam and I began work on a new and exciting task, this time a little closer to home, a stone throw away in Tremorfa.

Over the next few months, our focus will be the Vulcan pub. We’ll be conducting oral histories with former customers and landlords of the former Adamsdown pub, recording and filming their experiences and memories. The completed interviews will be edited into a short film which will be displayed in one of the redeveloped galleries. But also we hope these memories will give us as curators, a clearer picture of life at the Vulcan, its culture and its community.

Our first interviewees were Rhona and Mel Rees, landlords of the Vulcan pub between 1983 and 1985. From the very beginning, it was clear that they were extremely fond of the pub and its customers, and that they thoroughly enjoyed their time there. They described the pub as their living room, and the words cosy, friendly, and fun, were said regularly. They had plenty of amusing and comic tales from the pub to tell, but they also touched on deeper themes, such as raising a family in a pub and also the economic side of things and the decline of the trade. All in all it was an eye-opening interview, and we learnt so much about their daily lives as landlords of the Vulcan in the 80’s.

My personal highlight of the interview was a story about a prank played on Mel’s 50^th birthday involving a kissogram visiting the Vulcan, but I won’t give too much away now!

Mel and Rhona truly captured the atmosphere and character of the pub and its people, and I can’t wait to go out again to meet and interview the people who knew this very special pub.

If you or somebody you know have stories or objects related to the Vulcan, we’d love to hear from you – please leave a message in the comments box below.

#MakingHistory #CreuHanes

The Photographic Archive at St. Fagans: National History Museum has over 200,000 images in its collection and reflects Welsh Social and Cultural History. It documents people’s everyday life over the last few hundred years. The images capture the Welsh as they work, rest and play. The collection includes photographs from rural and industrial Wales of subjects such as: costume and dress; textiles; work and trades; domestic life; cultural life including music and sport; traditional craft; vernacular architecture; furniture and interiors. To celebrate St. David’s Day here are a few examples of the more steryotypical images from the collection! Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus I Bawb!

Hello. Here is what has been happening play area wise in St Fagans!

Our artists have been talking to curators and visiting our stores. They now know all about the themes covered in the new galleries and are thinking of ways in which they can incorporate them into the play area design. Some of the themes are food, work, fun - which also covers toys and games (that one might work), customs and folklore, childhood, as well as the perhaps not so appropriate - sleep and death.

We have also been talking about language - having text in the play area, maybe incorporating lullabies and sound into it (or is that too horror film?), sound, music, pigsties, beds and enclosed spaces, gates! (we have a collection of photographs of lots of different gates in the collection, all with different names) roofs! washing.... so much we could do, so many things...

Fern Thomas (supporting artist) has been managing to do research into folk remedies for her own art work - she has been looking at remedies for physical ailments from all around Wales which all seem to say 'wrap a piece of bacon round it' whatever the problem is.

Imogen Higgins (supporting artist) has started documenting all the different play areas in Cardiff and has also started blogging about it. If you know of any interesting ones, perhaps you could let us know?

I went to talk to Woodlands Special Secondary School a couple of weeks ago and some of the students there are going to help us with the design. We have our first meeting this week, so I will let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, please share, comment, and let me know stuff you've come across. Will be updating again soon.

Mae Wythnos Twristiaeth Cymru yn gyfle i dynnu sylw at bwysigrwydd y diwydiant twristiaeth wrth greu swyddi, cynhyrchu incwm ac adeiladu proffil treftadaeth a diwylliant Cymru. Cynghrair Twristiaeth Cymru, sef corff ambarél y diwydiant, sy’n cydlynu’r wythnos.

Mae Amgueddfa Cymru yn chwarae rhan bwysig yn adrodd stori hanes a diwylliant Cymru trwy ei hamgueddfeydd.

Dewch i ddathlu Dydd Gŵyl Dewi gyda ni. Bydd llond lle o weithgareddau a digwyddiadau arbennig yn ein hamgueddfeydd i ddathlu diwrnod nawddsant Cymru.

Yn Big Pit Amgueddfa Lofaol Cymru ar 27 Chwefror, bydd cyfle i ymarfer eich Cymraeg a bydd bwyd Cymreig traddodiadol, canu, crefftau, stondinau a gweithgareddau lu ar gyfer y plant.

Yn Amgueddfa Lleng Rufeinig Cymru, cewch wir flas ar fywyd Cymreig y Rhufeiniaid. Yno, ar 28 Chwefror, bydd cyfle i goginio picau ar y maen, creu baneri bach y ddraig a chennin i’w gwisgo ar ddiwrnod y dathlu,.

Ar y diwrnod mawr, bydd dathliadau Dydd Gŵyl Dewi yn Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd a Sain Ffagan Amgueddfa Werin Cymru. 

Bydd y dathliadau’n parhau yn Amgueddfa Genedlaethol y Glannau ar 5 Mawrth, gyda pherfformiadau, celf a chrefft, a cherddoriaeth werin a thwmpath yng nghwmni Twmpath Tawerin, RAFFDAM, Ric-a-Do a Gildas.

Cystadleuaeth ffotograffiaeth

Gan mai eleni yw Blwyddyn Antur yng Nghymru, mae Cynghrair Twristiaeth Cymru wedi lansio cystadleuaeth ffotograffiaeth ddigidol newydd sbon. Mae’n agored i bobl ifanc rhwng 11 ac 19 oed, ac maent yn chwilio am ffotograffau o Gymru sy’n gartref antur ar ei gorau. Am ragor o fanylion, ewch i www.wta.org.uk.

Since late 2012, with the centenary of the First World War in mind, curators at St Fagans have been involved in a project to digitise objects with relevance to the conflict. The results are on the First World War database which you can see on this website. But in 2016, the project is still very much ongoing. One aspect which has surprised everyone involved is that objects with stories to tell about the war are still being rediscovered.

Before we began looking specifically for these objects, their potential to reveal stories about the conflict had not always been realised, and connections between objects not always made. Huge numbers of objects were often collected in the past - some in the years immediately following the war - meaning that the information recorded at the time was often limited.

Sometimes a bit of luck has been involved. As part of the Making History project, thousands of items from the collection have moved between storerooms and conservation labs. While auditing an area containing military and civilian uniform, I recently found a collection of badges and buttons of relevance to the period, taking the extent of our First World War collections beyond what we had previously realised.

As artefacts of war, these objects often have poignant associations. One lapel badge was recently found complete with a tiny photograph of a soldier who was killed in 1915. A shoulder badge and button of the Grenadier Guards were found belonging to a soldier who was involved in the retreat from Mons in 1914, and of whom there is also a photograph in our collections. We have also discovered objects from areas of the conflict previously thought to be unrepresented in the collections, such as this South Wales Borderers cap badge commemorating the Egyptian campaign.

The exciting aspect of working on this project has been the discovery of collections not previously categorized by their First World War associations. We have uncovered objects in a variety of areas: among pictures and photographs, letters and certificates, medical equipment, textiles, badges and medals. Not only can these items be seen on our First World War database, but some of the stories we have discovered will be told within the displays planned for the new galleries here at St Fagans –  just one example of enabling the full richness of our collections to be permanently shared.

#WalesRemembers #CymrunCofio

This project is supported by the Armed Forces Community Covenant Grant Scheme.