Box of Delights Review
Conwy Food Festival 26th and 27th October 2013
Conwy Food Festival is an annual event for tourists, these kinds of events are very popular. Businesses from all around come down for the weekend with their products for us to taste and you can purchase what you enjoy.
Walking around town three days before the weekend I got to see the weekend being put together from start to finish. For example, the Box of Delights consists of several artists who have taken a passage from a book of literature and brought it to life.
- Bedwyr Williams who lives and works in Rhostryfan near Caernarfon, he represented Wales this year at Venice Biennale. For this festival he has transported the title of Graham Greene’s book ‘Brighton Rock’ and created ‘Conwy Rock’ with edible rocks that the viewers will be able to take to keep or to eat.
- Chloe Augusta Needham who is a multi-disciplinary artist working across a broad spectrum of media from watercolour paintings to multi-media installations. Inspired by Christina Rossetti’s 1862 poem ‘Goblin Market’, Chloe has created a magical installation playing with light and shadow.
- Megan Broadmeadow’s work finds its origin in customs and folklore, yet mixes with references to current popular phenomena to re-examine the position and relevance of these traditions today.
- Rebecca Gould has exhibited widely in group shows across Wales as well as Denmark, Spain and Germany her large-scale video installation is fragmented into components which come together in an attempt to deconstruct a painting by Chagall, ‘Paris Through The Window’.
- Ruth Bitowski has always been interested in the folk art genre, making anything out of what comes to hand in an instinctive way.
Being able to see the festival from start to finish was an incredible opportunity as I also got to meet the artists and have a chat with them as well as an organiser Jill who I first met as she took me round the venue while it was being set up. We were watching the artists put their show together.
It was also interesting to see how the local shops took part in advertising for the event as they were taking part in selling their items out in the street stalls like the rest of the businesses that came from all over Wales.
An example of the ‘Box of Delights’ was Carl Ann Duffy’s poem ‘bees’, in one section of the event, they used paper folding to make roughly fifty bees for a demonstration throughout the weekend.
Thursday was the best day for me to go and have a look around as it gave me an opportunity to speak to some of the artists. The weather was on our side as well, with only a bit wind for the weekend. Everyone I spoke to was really nice; they gave me as much information as they could without taking up too much of their time and they were all in a happy mood even while they had to work to put their exhibits up.
I am looking forward to next year’s festival as I’m well aware that it brings many tourists over to Conwy each and every year.
