Exhibition bringing together videos and archival materials on community video making in Wales, free entry.
Street TV: Radical Film and Video in Wales opens at Chapter Gallery on Saturday 17 October and runs through to 3 January 2027. It's an exhibition that brings together videos and archival materials on community video making in Wales, and entry is free.
Much of what's on display comes from the archives of the Community Video Workshop, which was based right here at Chapter and was one of the first video workshops in the UK. It started in 1974 as Cardiff Street TV, set up by Terence Dimmick, Steve Gough and Jane Hutt after they got a portapack video camera on loan from the Welsh Arts Council. By 1983 it had become a franchised workshop funded by Channel 4 to make independent documentaries for television.
The whole thing grew out of the grassroots video groups of the 1970s and 80s, when low-cost, portable video technology was turned into a radical tool for activism, giving a voice to communities that were marginalised by mainstream media. It wasn't just Chapter, either. Other Welsh workshops from that era included Chapter Film Workshop, Powys Video Project, Gweld Video, Black Video Workshop Wales, South West Glamorgan Video Workshop and South Wales Women's Film Group. Some of those members went on to form Red Flannel, the first women's film workshop in Wales.
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Chapter Gallery itself is an international centre for contemporary arts and culture, set up by artists in 1971. The gallery is open Tuesday to Sunday, 12-5pm, and entry is free, so there's plenty of time to work your way through the videos and the archives.
