CURRENT EXHIBITIONS - UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS - PREVIOUS EXHIBITIONS

Current Exhibitions

"Urban Quilombo" by Sebastian Liste

5 May - 16 June 2013, 3rd floor

Opening night preview: Saturday, 4 May

“This community is a metaphor of a place where the tragic decomposition of human life combines perfectly with the magic realism of Latin America.”

Sebastian Liste Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. The streets so dangerous, the favelas vast and unmapped, the economic growth of the immense country passing by. Escaping of their surrounding crime, drugs, prostitution and violence, dozens of destitute families move into an abandoned chocolate factory: “Galpao da Araujo Barreto”. For eight years, the chocolate factory becomes a refuge, a glimpse of hope in an otherwise tough city.

Urban Quilombo documents life inside Barreto, the occupied chocolate factory that became home to an entire community. Sebastian Liste tells their story in a mythical, almost magical, visual narrative. A town within a town, Barreto was a poor society, but one that also gave meaning and a sense of control to its inhabitants. It provided strength and courage for seeking new ways of surviving within the urban environment. Often counter-cultural and rebellious, the system of values and relationships of Barreto developed until the eviction of its occupiers in 2011. Now, they've been moved to the extra-radius, and Barreto has been cleaned to make way for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

Sebastian Liste was born in Alicante, Spain in 1985. He studied sociology and photojournalism. His work has been exhibited in photography festivals such as Look3 and Visa Pour l'Image, and published in TIME and the Sunday Times among others.

Urban Quilombo is part of Diffusion Festival, Cardiff's photography festival. The opening of this exhibition is sponsored by Otley Brewing Company.

Click here to download the press release (pdf, 184kB).

Upcoming Exhibitions

Third Floor:

'Georgia' by Vanessa Winship.

22 June - 28 July 2013

Previous Exhibitions