Date:	Current
Artist:	Stefhan Caddick
Location:	Along the A465

Butetown Film Screening

As part of the Caerphilly A465 projects Powys based artist Stefhan Caddick, has been commissioned by Caerphilly County Borough Council and Safle to make a film in and around Butetown, a tiny, historically significant village at the head of the Rhymney Valley in South Wales. Stefhan is using archive footage to make a short animated film in the village. Archival materials have been drawn from the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, BBC Cymru Wales, Cardiff Video Workshop as well as personal archives held by local people.

Stefhan has been working closely with village residents during 2008 and 2009 and has created a series of events held in the local church where residents come together with historians and the artistic community to watch films which relate to the local area, and to discuss what these materials might mean in the present day. The events have included materials relating to a wide variety of historic events such as: the First and Second World Wars; 1926 General Strike and 1984 Miners Strike; Mass Observation; Nye Bevan and the birth of the NHS; the Carnival Tradition of the South Wales Valleys; changes to domestic and working life in South Wales over the past century.

Stefhan is currently filming the animation in various venues in the village and surrounding area, and is planning to present the finished piece at an outdoor event very soon.


Stefhan Caddick trained as a documentary photographer and now works primarily with new media, performance and site-specific intervention. A wide-ranging body of works produced during the past decade have at their root a sensitivity to the site of their conception or presentation, maintaining an inquisitive, questioning approach. Process is more crucial than product for Caddick, and often the exhibition serves to highlight this process from inception through to production, rather than to present a finite, complete work.

Many of Caddick's projects take the form of manoeuvres; strategies or methodologies which result in an action, installation, or other form of presentation: erecting a discontinued electronic road sign in the centre of Cardiff and asking the public to send their text messages to it; attempting to make and use a pair of ski’s with no knowledge of woodwork (or skiing); recording a second of sound every minute for three hours in an attempt to produce a 7 inch single; or cycling 250 miles during a cold February in Wales, avoiding main roads and asking passers-by for hand-drawn directions.