Gareth Evans-Jones selected as Welsh participant in European Festivals Counterpoint project

Posted by Nici on 25 April 2023

Features, News

We are delighted to announce that the Welsh participant selected to take part in the Counterpoint project is award-winning playwright, author and poet Gareth Evans-Jones, from Ynys Môn.

Gareth will join Polish poet and translator Zofia Bałdygathe artist selected by our sister organisation Culture Reset, for a series of digital workshops in May and June with Poland-based Armenian poet, translator, and visual artist Tatev Chakhian

The three participating artists will collect local material relevant to the topic of migration, discuss it and reflect on local perspectives and attitudes before creating new work collaboratively and/or independently over the period of the workshops.

Looking forward to the project, Gareth said, “Reporting migration is such an important initiative. People’s migration experiences, and their stories, and challenges, and the opportunities and developments that come with them need to be widely heard. It’s true that society hears about the stories of people emigrating through the news and the media, but to hear about those experiences in creative ways is a very remarkable thing.”

A lecturer in Philosophy and Religion at Bangor University, Gareth added, “Discussing people’s migrant experiences in different ways is core to several undergraduate modules I teach at Bangor, because social justice is an aspect I mainly research academically.”

Gareth will present the work developed during the Counterpoint project at Gŵyl Arall festival, including translations of Tatev’s poems into Welsh, and July also sees the publication of the first anthology of LGBTQ+ literature in the Welsh language. Curiadau is edited by Gareth and will be published by Barddas.  His second novel, Y Cylch, will be also be published by Gwasg y Bwthyn this summer.

 

The Counterpoint project is co-financed by the European Festivals Fund for Emerging Artists and aims at internationalising the careers of emerging artists through cooperation between festivals. Our joint application to the EFFEA to support Tatev Chakhian was succesful and the project is led by our long-term partner, the Maltese cultural organisation Inizjamed and their Malta Mediterranean Literature Festivaland involves the Poetry Day Festival and Culture Reset in Prague, Thraka and their Thessalian Poetry Festival in Larissa.