Vale Mayor to host Holocaust Memorial Event
The Vale of Glamorgan Council will commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) with two exhibitions at the Vale’s Art Central Gallery.
Held on Saturday 26 January, the Council’s ‘Torn from Home’ exhibition will see Cllr. Leighton Rowlands, Mayor of the Vale of Glamorgan Council, introduce Alison Lochhead’s sculptures, ‘Layered memories of Conflict and Abandonment’, and award-winning digital artist Nerea Martinez de Lecea’s collection, ‘Child A’.
Cllr. Rowlands will be joined by the Council’s Cabinet Member for Learning and Culture, Cllr. Bob Penrose, who will welcome both artists to the gallery.
The artists will then, in turn, discuss their work and the themes of memories, conflict and identity.
Alison Lochhead tells the story of conflict, migration and the destruction of culture and history through her installation of cast iron shoes, burnt books and columns of rubble, whilst Nerea Martinez de Lecea’s ‘Child A’ digital paintings explore fractured identity and a dislocated sense and sensation of being in the world.
Cllr. Rowlands said:
“Holocaust Memorial Day takes place each year on 27 January – marking the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“I hope many of our residents will join us at Art Central this weekend to pay our respects and remember those whose lives were lost during the Second World War and in subsequent genocides.”
Cllr. Penrose said:
“This year’s exhibition offers a distinctive mix of sculptural and digital artwork by Lochhead and Martinez de Lacea, each a celebrated artist living and working in Wales.
“Whilst the exhibitions vary in the delivery of their respective themes, both allow their audiences to reflect on genocide, and the loss of identity.
“This year’s theme, set by the Holocaust Memorial Trust, reminds us that such an atrocity should never happen again.”
The ‘Torn from Home’ theme encourages audiences to reflect on how the enforced loss of a safe place to call ‘home’ is part of the trauma faced by anyone experiencing persecution and genocide.
The exhibition opens at 11:00am on 26 January, and is open to all members of the public.
It can be seen at Art Central Gallery, King Square, Barry, until Saturday 02 March 2019.
The gallery is open Monday to Friday, between 09:30am – 4:30pm, and between 09:30am – 3:30pm on Saturdays.
For further information about this and forthcoming exhibitions at Art Central, visit www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/artcentral.