A Fine Beginning, from which this collective takes its name, is the first chapter of Dylan Thomas’ unfinished novel Adventures in the Skin Trade. The central character of the story leaves his parents home in South Wales for Paddington Station and when asked where he’s going, Samuel Bennett replies, ‘I don’t know where I’m going, I haven’t any idea in the world, that’s why I came to London’.
A Fine Beginning is a Welsh photography collective, established by James O Jenkins with the ambition to develop a platform to discover and showcase contemporary photography being made in Wales today.
The collective launched with a publication in May 2013 at the publishing weekend of the inaugural Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography. The issue showcased the work of four of our current members; Gawain Barnard, Jack Latham, Abbie Trayler-Smith and James O Jenkins. In foregrounding photography in Wales, the festival provided an opportune moment to launch the first instalment of A Fine Beginning.
A Fine Beginning aims to offer a platform to photographers making work in Wales to have their photography seen and appreciated in Wales and beyond. To find out about future projects or to submit your work, please get in touch.
Our first exhibition ‘A Fine Beginning: Made in Wales‘ was at Arcade Cardiff (14th-30th March 2014). The exhibition showed work from the collective as well as selected images from work we have featured on our blog. The exhibition opens again at Oriel Colwyn on September 5th to 31st October 2014.
Coverage of the exhibition can be seen via these links: BBC , The Guardian, The Independent, The Western Mail, BJP, Foto8 and Panos Pictures.
Louise Hobson
aprojectcardiff.wordpress.com 