Community portraits made by young people are revealed in a major outdoor exhibition in Presteigne

A large-scale exhibition of community portraits will be presented outdoors along Presteigne’s Broadaxe Lane over the August Bank Holiday weekend. 

Earlier this year, members of the Presteigne community were invited to ‘Bennetts’ on the High Street to have their portrait photographs taken by the Sidney Nolan Trust’s youth arts group Cultivate. 

The group were supported by professional photographers including Julia Cody, Alex Ramsay and Roger Williams.

The portraits were used as part of Cultivate’s project as an inquiry into community action. The group worked with the Inside Out Project, an international initiative that supports communities to raise their voices by exhibiting portraits of themselves as public art.

French artist JR launched the Inside Out Project in 2011, and it has now become the largest global participatory art project. 

Cultivate's community portraits are the project's first-ever 'action' in Wales.

The Rural is Relevant exhibition will run outside and along Broadaxe Lane, by John Beddoes Campus and the East Radnor Leisure Centre (Broadaxe Lane, LD8 2YT – what3words ///late.blotting.hungry) from Friday, August 22 to Monday, August 25. 

It is presented using recyclable cardboard and, depending on the weather, will continue to run for a longer period over the summer.

Everyone is invited to join the young people for the launch of the exhibition and hear them discuss their work at 10.30 am, Saturday, August 23.

Cultivate is a youth arts programme run by the Sidney Nolan Trust based in the rural border region of Wales and Herefordshire. 

The programme is led by artist Emma Posey who said; “The portraits highlight our diversity as a community and are intended to raise a shared voice for the services on which we all depend, yet are often under threat due to our rurality. 

“Collectively, the group has called for high-quality educational provision in our community, the East Radnor Leisure Centre to stay open, the roads to be fixed and for more public transport that mobilises people. We want clean rivers and better stewardship of our countryside for the benefit of future generations”.

The exhibition is presented to coincide with the Presteigne Festival and Presteigne Open Studios. More about the Inside Out project here www.insideoutproject.net., artist Emma Posey emmaposey.org, The Sidney Nolan Trust sidneynolantrust.org.