Africans in Wales: home, in another land
Photojournalist Glenn Edwards spent eight years documenting the culture, celebrations, achievements and everyday lives of African diasporic communities across Wales. Words: Merlin Gable.
When health issues in his family led to Glenn Edwards being unable to travel to Africa – whose countries and people have long been one of his lifelong photographic passions – he turned his camera much closer to home. For the past eight years, he has been photographing the African diasporic communities of Wales. The result is the ongoing photography project Home: in another land, which opens today as an exhibition in Newport Museum and Art Gallery.
The forty or so images on display dwell on the public and private worlds of their subjects, the cultural differences and similarities within the umbrella of the African diaspora in Wales, and feature moments of celebration, music, coming together, and ordinary, mundane scenes of living.
Although Newport is Glenn’s home, and so the exhibition here forms some kind of homecoming, this is not the works’ first public outing. Opening in Aberystwyth Arts Centre, it has since toured Oriel Colwyn in Colwyn Bay, Found Gallery in Brecon, and the Dathliad Affrica Cymru festival in 2023. The exhibition also features the poems of Samantha Vazhure from Llanvaches near Caldicot in Gwent.
Also featuring in the exhibition is an installation video loop of Glenn’s work in Africa, Africa Against All Odds PLUS, featuring images taken across multiple decades in multiple countries right up until a recent trip to Rwanda in 2024.
The exhibition can be viewed free of charge until September.
Glenn Edwards is an award-winning photojournalist with over 100 foreign assignments. He has covered news and features for national and international media and charity organisations including The Independent, BBC, Irish Times, Oxfam, Computer Aid, World Food Programme and Concern Universal.
Merlin Gable is co-editor of Cwlwm.