© Ken Griffiths
Last year, pop star warbler Duffy and BAFTA-winning actor Matthew Rhys starred in a film, Patagonia, portraying the shifting sands of an Argentinean woman and a Welsh couple trading air miles in pursuit of their shared heritage.
Encouraged by the host country’s government, thousands of Welsh people made a pilgrimage to settlements skirting Buenos Aires at the end of the 19th century, a curious cultural and climatic switch which sees a quarter of people in the Chubut Province speaking Welsh today.
The film was inspired by pictures by Ken Griffiths, a photographer who made three expeditions to the heart of Welsh Patagonia, joined by friend Norman Thomas di Giovanni, a writer and former resident of Argentina with a passion for translating the works of 20th century surrealist Jorge Luis Borges.
They used their gonzo-sounding 2001 and 2002 escapades to survey Chubut during different seasons, following the trails taken more than a century ago by young Welsh nomads who strove to preserve their history while forging close links with their native Indian counterparts.
Griffiths has a reputation for cinematically atmospheric portraits, and in the colony he has found a rugged, hard-working Welsh community, captured on carbro – a process involving bromide which results in thickly detailed gelatin prints.
Simon Fraser, who was the location sound recordist for the film, gives aural accompaniment to this looking glass on a community.
- Open Tuesday-Saturday 11am-5pm. Admission free.
