08 Jun 2012

TREIGNAC PROJET presents FWA: Freeing Welsh Architecture

FWA: FREEING WELSH ARCHITECTURE is an exhibition of artwork and illustrative material, relating to episodes in the history of the Free Wales Army.

The Free Wales Army was a small, loosely organized, activist group that operated in Wales (UK) during the 1960s and onwards. Agitating for an independent Welsh nation state, the Free Wales Army launched an itinerant militant campaign against British interests in Wales. They claimed responsibility for attacks on what they perceived to be imperialist architectures such as reservoirs, pipelines, and government offices, though many of these claims were never substantiated or brought to trial. In 1968, one of the founding members of the Free Wales Army, Julien Cayo Evans, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for causing unrest during the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales.

Today they remain largely forgotten; their efforts overshadowed by the establishment of the Welsh Assembly in 1998, which granted more powers to Wales within the overall governance of the United Kingdom.

FWA: FREEING WELSH ARCHITECTURE is an exhibition that does not tell a comprehensive history of The Free Wales Army, nor does it aim to celebrate or historicise their actions. The exhibition includes photographs acquired by the Dyfed and Powys Police, a new artwork by Bedwyr Williams, as well as documentation of the Capel Celyn reservoir complex that was one of the main instigating events in the establishment of the Free Wales Army. While these examples point to questions of architectural and ideological appropriation, the exhibition is also reflects on how historical and political agency operates within artistic frameworks.

Curated by Matt Packer

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Treignac Projet is a public gallery and experimental project space devoted to curatorial practice situated in a former factory on the Plateau de Millevaches, Limousin, France. Since 2007, Treignac Projet has developed projects such as New International School led by Shahin Afrassiabi, as well as exhibitions by Tom Humphreys, Luxury Logico, Alasdair Duncan, and N'krumah Lawson Daku, among others. In September 2012, Treignac Projet is collaborating with the Centre international d'art et du paysage de l'île de Vassivière on the public seminar 'Matter of Contradiction' with participants including Graham Harman and Timothy Morton.