New gallery launches with gift from one of Britain’s most influential documentary photographers

THE Swansea Fringe Festival will return this weekend after what can only be described as a lengthy hiatus around 30 years to be precise.

Drawing inspiration from the Edinburgh Festival, the three-day Swansea Fringe Festival was once a major event back in the 1980s - and will be staged alongside the long-running Swansea International Festival.

And it’s great news for music fans with the cream of Welsh music such as Trampolene, The People The Poet, Straight Lines and many many more coming together across the three days - starting today and coming to a close on Sunday.

“The Swansea Fringe was big back in the 1980s, kick-starting the careers of many comedians, including Paul Merton,” said organiser Joe Bayliss, who, alongside his fellow festival organiser Simon Parton, has done a magnificent job in bringing together a hugely enticing line-up.

This year, the Fringe returns, kick-starting the Swansea International Festival and it returns with a bang, with moe than 100 artists and acts coming to the city over one weekend as part of the Swansea Big Weekend.

Joe said the pair wanted to showcase the huge array of talent that there is on their doorstep.

“Our aim this year was to show that Swansea has an wealth of talent when looking at music, poetry, comedy, drama, art, film, performance and more,” he said.

“We also wanted to show that Swansea is more than capable of grouping all these amazing artists over one weekend and that people in Swansea are up for a great weekend, enjoying these artists.

He added: “We’re a very small team of two this year, so it’s been pretty full-on, but we’ve aimed high.

“We’ve had a support from the Swansea International Festival, BBC Horizons, Swansea Council, The Swansea 2021 team and the Swansea Big Weekend team which has been amazing.

“We’ve also got a great small team of wonderful dedicated volunteers, who’ll be on the doors at venues checking wristbands, and the attitudes of the acts, artists, musicians and performers has been really positive, which has really helped.”

The inaugural festival will be focused primarily on the city’s High Street, and will feature musicians, comedians, writers, poets, artists, food- and drink-makers, and all manner of other creative types joining in, we all as seminars and classes.

Some of the events are free, and some events are ticketed and will require a wristband to enter.

You can buy a wristband for the day or for the whole weekend, and that will give you access to all the ticketed events during that period.

Tickets cost £10 for the day, or £20 for all three days.

To find out more and to discover the full line-up visit: The Swansea Fringe 2017: High Street Festival

ANEW gallery dedicated to photography opens at National Museum Cardiff this weekend, which celebrates the major gift of photographs from one of Britain’s most influential documentary photographers, David Hurn.

Swaps: Photographs from the David Hurn Collection, presents a selection of works by leading photographers that Hurn has collected by swapping his works with fellow photographers. The exhibition runs from until March 11 2018.

Of Welsh descent, Hurn lives and works in Wales.

Throughout his career as a documentary photographer and member of Magnum Photos, Hurn has been an avid collector of photography.

He has amassed his private collection over the past six decades, predominantly by swapping works with fellow photographers, including Andy Warhol in his “Factory” at Union Square © Thomas Hoepker/Magnum Photos many of his Magnum colleagues.

The exhibition features more than 80 works that highlight Hurn’s eye for a good photograph, and also reveal the friendships he has developed with key photographers throughout the course of his career.

The whole collection comprises approximately 700 photographs by leading 20th and 21st century photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eve Arnold, Sergio Larrain, Bill Brandt, Martine Franck, Bruce Davidson and Martin Parr, through to emerging photographers such as Bieke Depoorter, Clémentine Schneidermann, and Newsha Tavakolian.

In addition to his private collection, Hurn has also donated approximately 1500 of his own photographs that span his sixtyyear career as a documentary photographer. The Queen on her way to open the new Welsh Assembly, Bute Street, Cardiff, 2011. Photo Nick Treharne