Stadtgrün

With over 330 parks and gardens Cardiff is a very green city. Green spaces are a great benefit to our environment. They filter pollutants and dust from the air, they provide shade and lower temperatures in urban areas, and they even reduce erosion of soil into our waterways. Green spaces are fundamental to our wellbeing, especially in densely populated areas where not everybody has access to their own garden.

The dictionary translates the German word ‘Stadtgrün’ to ‘urban parks’, yet if you look at the single words ‘Stadt’ and ‘Grün’ the meaning broadens to include any kind of urban or city green and whilst many seem to take pride in living in a ‘green city’ the question remains whether or not we actually make use of all the green our immediate environment has to offer.

The focus of this series lies on parks in and around Butetown, namely Canal Park, Hamadryad Park, Cardiff Bay Barrage and Silurian Park. ‘Stadtgrün’ explores places intended for public recreation through the absence of the people they were designed for. Concentrating most images on a single object highlights the vastness of the empty space so that in the end one might be left wondering why these facilities seem to not be used by the local community and begin to question the design behind many of the facilities depicted.