Cordelia Weedon

Cordelia Weedon studied for a year at Guilford School of Art, before going onto to work as photographic assistant. She subsequently worked freelance in London mainly in portraiture, theatre, and music photography. Working with the Museum of London on changing aspects of London (the old Covent Garden Market, Lighter Barges and the Docklands area) gave her a lasting interest in documentary photography.

When she moved to Wales she worked for several years as the photographer for the Tanat Chronicle, and this led onto other projects, documenting rural livelihoods, social care and campaigning issues, getting pictures exhibited and published both in Wales as well as nationally.  She also worked as an archaeological photographer, and on researching photographic archives. She studied for a degree in Photography at Wolverhampton University as a mature student, and with a growing interest photographic education she also did a Teacher Training course. She experimented and taught different photographic processes such as Pinhole, Cyanotype, Kallitype, and Gum Bichromate printing. Her interest in participatory arts projects led onto becoming a co founder of Arts Connection, which enabled her to do more collaborative work with other artists. For several years she worked for Severn Trent Water documenting the development of the Lake Vyrnwy Sculpture Park, and photographing their organic farming and conservation work in the area. In 2008 she was commissioned by Ruthin Craft Centre to do a series of B/W photographs of Ruthin town for a permanent exhibition in their café, and a short film, Hiraeth, showing at their Cultural Gateway. Manorhaus Llangollen recently commissioned her through Arts & Business to do a series of photographs of Llangollen town.

Cordelia has worked on projects through Wales Arts International in Russia, Cuba, and more recently Spain. She is currently working with the Archive of Sound & Image (ASIM) in Palma on an exhibition and book The Eyes of Time (Ulls del Temps Mallorca 1956 – 1970) combining some of her father, Tom Weedon’s last photographs before he died, and some of her first photographs. This is currently touring to different museums and galleries. She exhibited her Final Focus work – an exploration of loss through photography – at the Hereford Photography Festival (1997) and as part of Oriel Davies Gallery’s exhibition Elegy (2001); both projects being a tribute to her father, who inspired her to take up photography.

Between 2000 – 2009 she worked for Photoworks Westminster, a charity that ran participatory projects in marginalised communities in London. When Photoworks closed due to lack of funding, she used this experience to initiate a Photo Diaries project for a small Welsh charity, Dolen Ffermio (Farming Link), collaborating with Ugandan partners to set up and run projects with vulnerable children in schools in rural north east Ugandan, and linking them with schools in Wales as part of Wales Africa Community Links. This is a work-in-progress project helping the charity raise awareness in the Uk about issues affecting Africa, and giving the people involved a voice to help bring about change.

Cordelia Weedon      Photographer/Tutor                                                          2015