Cardiff Bay

Hiraeth.

A word that has been used before in many a photobook from great Welsh photographers as well as those who reside across the border or overseas. It has no meaning but if you were to look it up the dictionary would see that the word has no direct English translation The word Hiraeth in its closest translation is likened to homesickness tinged with grief and sadness over the lost or departed, especially in the context of Wales and Welsh culture and a deep longing for something, especially one’s home. It is this hiraeth to our heritage, our history and our culture that brought about this project. Far to often I see with my eyes how slowly the old is forgotten, disregarded and abandoned. Classic buildings removed to make way for their more modern counterparts, streets redesigned to look more modern in appearance and neighbourhoods changed. In its heyday Cardiff was once the second biggest and busiest port in the world, in fact the Welsh National Museum even said it was coal and shipping metropolis of the world exporting over 11 million tonnes of coal a year. It’s no surprise that large amounts of money passed through The Coal Exchange building located within Tiger Bay and the first million pound cheque was signed here. The area around The Coal Exchange building that’s named Mount Stewart Square saw grand buildings built on a scale to those in Bath or London with The Coal Exchange being built to a French Renaissance style. Other buildings within the square were built to either Neo- Georgian or Italianate architecture styles, many with Georgian style façades of grey coursed stone with bath stone dressings.

As life hurdles on and local councils long to regenerate and modernise their cities, Cardiff hasn’t escaped this phenomenon and with Cardiff being the metropolis of Wales it’s expansion and regeneration like other cities around the UK has been colossal. The images within this project are just a snap shot of how Tiger Bay has been regenerated and how and where money was spent. These once proud grand buildings that were a cornerstone and pivotal to Welsh economy and helped shape Wales on the worldwide map have now been abandoned by the council that’s hand they fed, in favour of new touristic buildings within a stones throw of their location. This project also looks at how the once credible dock features that served a purpose such as securing items were categorised into those features that were to be lost forever and scrapped to those that could be repurposed into non credible scene setters to sell the area to tourists. It is this hiraeth I long for, the hiraeth of our Welsh culture and our Welsh history. There is a loss and disregard for where we came from and the soul of Tiger Bay has been eroded away, not by the people who live there and remember Tiger Bay as it was once before but by those who owned the land and reaped the monies it provided, happily taking what they could until the day it stopped before then turning their back not only on the land but more importantly, the local community.