BLING BANGOR

BLING HEADER

An exhibition of work by local young people from TY Cegin Bangor, looking at how precious metal, treasure and decoration is used to express taste, image and personal status.

The Wales wide project funded by Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales and Communities First Outcomes fund has worked with groups from all over Wales to produce lively and vibrant work all with a completely different take on the ‘Bling!’ theme.

Each group has worked with an artist to create their own ‘Bling' and the work displayed at the National Slate Museum Llanberis is by local youth group from Bangor working with artist Mari Gwent. The group went behind the scenes at the museum to discover the artefacts and items that are considered precious within its collections. 

Artist Mari Gwent explained further:
“We enjoyed a tour of the museum and were astounded by the variety of crafted moulds in the pattern lofts and by the quarrymen’s cottages from the 1901 Penrhyn Strike. We were also inspired by a short quote in the museum’s introductory film about the wealthy landowners enjoying plum cake whilst the workers had bread and tea and slate dust – so while the workers toiled with the hard work of creating moulds to cast heavy machinery in the quarry, the gentry were dining on jelly and blancmange from fine porcelin moulds from their huge kitchens.

“The group work ‘Bwrdd Bwyd – Dinner table’ is a tribute to the quarrymen. It’s a long table filled with a variety of delicious food, some moulded, some finely carved in a 19th century folk art style. Each piece is different but they all contain one vital ingredient- slate!”