Well it’s just seven days to go before Made in Roath 2017. Seven days, one week, 168 hours, 10080 minuets, 604800 seconds (suddenly that doesn’t seem very much, eek better drink some tea and write some words).
What I’m basically trying to get across to you is that your favourite (and coincidently your only) Roath based arts festival will return with another full week of creativity, happenings and craziness in just one weeks time. Regulars to the festival know that we try to pack in everything we can and always sorta do. We also have one or two things falling outside the week, for example we have the fantastic Wonderbrass 25th birthday celebrations in the Gate art centre happening on Saturday the 14th as a warm up event to the festival this year.
This years festival sees something in the region of over a hundred different events, happenings, exhibitions, poetry readings, performances, film screenings, Create workshops, open houses, presentations, readings, wall pastings and things which words have not yet been invented to describe… plus much, much more.
The good news is that we have a few different ways to help you navigate the creative maze of the festival. You can consult the festival brochure or view the festival event calendar. If you’d prefer you can check out all the different themed events on our website to keep up to date with all the events we have going on. We will also be writing a daily post featuring a different aspect of the festival to tell you more about what is happening and what we have to offer.
Today we thought we’d kick things off with the ever popular Open Houses/Studios and Exhibitions programs.
We start with Open Houses and Studios. This is always an exciting and fantastic aspect of the festival. Join us as we discover the hidden creative world behind the front doors of peoples (kindly donated) homes. Marvel at how living rooms and kitchens are transformed into art galleries and creative spaces. This is also a great way to meet, socialise and experience the richness of the community. The bulk of the Open Houses and Studios take place on Saturday the 21st but a few are open throughout the week. (Check the brochure or website for details.) This year the Open Houses and Studios have been organised and run by the ever brilliant Gail Howard. You can see the full list of the open houses by following the link on the website.
The other aspect of the festival we are looking at tonight is the Exhibition program. While this is partly a more traditional format for an arts festival, with pieces of art work stuck to walls there is also so much more going on. This year’s exhibition program has been organised by the wonderful Helen Clifford. Made in Roath has a proud history of a diverse and extensive exhibition programme which supports as many local galleries as possible. The Exhibition program also takes you into alternative public, private and community places. We have always aimed to provide artists, makers, performers and anyone wanting to share and display their creativity a space to exhibit. The Exhibition program takes place throughout the week you can see the full list of what is going on by following the link.
We’ll be adding a new blog post each day about another aspect of the festival. We began tonight with two of the biggest and we hope you look forward to hearing about the others as the week goes on. As always thanks for reading.