Yr Gair #18.5

The Dyddiau Du newsletter

Dyddiau Du newsletters are like Cardiff buses. You either get two at the same time, or none at all x

This is a special one though, as we’ve invited our best mates Lone Worlds to write up something gorgeous following their residency in the Dyddiau Du space for the month of August, while we closed our doors to the summer and attempted to have a summer (getting drunk in the park).

Read on to hear from Howl, Director of Lone Worlds! And make sure to give LW a follow on instagram if you don’t already.

Community at the Heart of the Matter

Hia, it’s Howl from Lone Worlds here! Since July we’ve been lucky enough to be able to work with Dyddiau Du, our local queer community hub and library, so I thought I’d write a little piece about our experience. Buckle in!

When working with Dyddiau Du I can’t help but throw my mind back to the distressed, garden-centric summer of 2020. My co-director Ivy and I were discussing isolation, our painful experiences of loss and separation from our arts and queer community. We scrounged up a remedy for what we felt would be a solution to those feelings; to make what we wanted to see, rather than stand-by and wait for a higher power to grant us space. We wanted movement.

There is unparalleled potential in collaboration. Those of us at Lone Worlds are aiming to narrow the gaps between organisations who hold common ground with us, especially for those organisations who share commonality in who they’re reaching, including our intersectional communities. As artists and creatives the world is increasingly difficult to navigate, many of us do the work we do without long-term security. We have to learn to be adaptable… conveniently a creative skillset’s strongest asset.

I trust in navigating a creative path and I believe in not doing it alone. Instead, let’s rely on our community and put the work in to help each other grow. For those of us at Lone Worlds this is what it means to work with Dyddiau Du: to put community at the heart of the matter.

Small ideas can ricochet and create waves bigger than anyone could expect. What I see in LW I also see in DD: a remedy against a lack, a feeling of absence. To make a space where queer creatives can meet, express and build community on our terms. LW and DD have been a part of the growing subculture of queer art spaces and collectives appearing around South Wales, so when DD first popped up as a library and community hub in the Capitol Shopping Centre those of us at LW were keen to see what was brewing.

As expected, the team at DD were wonderfully inviting and just as keen to share the space as we were to use it. LW has now been using the DD space as our office base since August, and we’re super happy to say that we’re continuing this for the foreseeable future. This is a huge opportunity for us as LW has always been nomadic in nature, moving from base to base, collaborator to collaborator. Our link with DD means that for the first time we have a committed space we can work in. It means even more that we are able to work with an organisation who reflects so many of our beliefs and are a part of the community.

What’s in the future then? At LW we’re building ourselves into a sustainable organisation to ensure our work lasts. Like DD, we’re dedicated to making an impact on the creative culture of South Wales; to platform queer voices and support innovative and alternate methods of creating. We’ve got an exciting future of creating ahead of us, all for the benefit of helping each other grow. So if you’re interested, get in touch with us - we’re open to new ideas and collaborations. In the meantime get down to your local community arts space and support your local creatives. Go be a part of something! I’m certain we’re all going to leave a huge queer imprint on Cardiff. Let’s make this small Welsh city a capital for creativity.

Take care and cariad mawr,

Howl
Lone Worlds

@loneworlds

Joshua, Lucy, Oskar & Rey x

Dyddiau Du
Fri-Sat 11-6pm, Sun 11-4pm
Capitol Centre, Queen Street, Cardiff, CF10 2HQ
dyddiaudu@gmail.com
Twitter & Instagram: @dyddiaudu

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