Glenn Edwards has had a passion for photography ever since he borrowed his father’s camera on a trip to Tenerife in his mid-twenties.
Since then, he has participated in more than 100 foreign commissions, most of them in Africa.
The Newport photographer and lecturer feels a special connection to the continent.
Now he’s settled in Cardiff, capturing Wales’ thriving African communities.
Glenn was in his twenties when he borrowed his father’s Topcon RE Super.
He was a steelmaker at the time but he felt he hadn’t found his true passion.
“I found myself in markets or in unusual places in Tenerife where tourists probably didn’t go,” he said.
“I felt I had found what I wanted to do with my life.”
He got his chance by taking a photography course in his hometown.
A local doctor called Theodore Griffiths was talking about his work in India and Glenn was invited to attend.
Glenn asked him if the photographs helped promote aid work in developing causes, and Dr Griffiths said the images helped raise awareness.
He was invited and described the experience as “life-changing”.
“I feel like I’m getting emotional because I’ve never been through it before and haven’t since,” he said.
“Something happened to me there.”
The 1992 food crisis in Somalia left much suffering and more than 23 million people needed assistance.
Glenn was working there and it made him question himself for the first time.
“It was an open truck where people would go, pick up families’ bodies and just throw them in the back. I was photographing people’s grief and feeling guilty,” he said.
“I was walking through a refugee camp in a tent and there was a woman holding her husband and he was obviously going to die.
“I could have gone there to take pictures, but I couldn’t because it was too personal. That’s when I realized I wasn’t sure I was able to go. too far in the news.”
These days he photographs African communities in Wales, with some of his images recently featured in an exhibition at the Aberystwyth Art Centre.
“There was a guy from Uganda walking around. He was so proud to see himself on the walls of a gallery,” he said.
Such moments are what give the photographer the most pride.
Glenn has focused his work on many other bands.
The Mandinka Successors are hosting the first Dathliad Cymru-Africa (Celebrate Wales-Africa) festival in Bethesda, Gwynedd next weekend.
Founders Cathryn McShane-Kouyaté and N’famady Kouyaté created it in 2019 “to celebrate the richness of diversity in Wales”.
“There were no West African musicians my husband could join, so we started collaborating,” Cathryn said.
Covid has been tough on the creative couple, but they’ve made the most of it.
“We did some projects online and then, once the restrictions were lifted, we really got going. We’ve been building so far,” Cathryn added.
Cathryn is optimistic that the festival can continue to grow in the future.
“I can see us moving to reach other communities. We’ve had interest from other places. Celebrating Africa and Wales and those connections we have,” she said.
Tijesunimi Olakojo is a community stage coordinator for the festival. She came to Wales in November 2020 after moving to the UK from Nigeria.
A Red Cross counselor told her to pursue what she loved.
As a performer, she and the successors were a match made in heaven, she believes.
The Cardiff-based band offers an interactive African music experience and cultural exchange of drumming, music, drumming, singing, storytelling and dancing.
“I love it. It feels like home because I’ve never seen anything like it before in Wales,” she said.
“People here welcome foreigners and for me that is very important. I love the sense of community.”
Martha Musonza Holman is the founder of the charity Love Zimbabwe.
She lives in Abergavenny after being forced to flee her home country in 2001 and has worked tirelessly to connect her adopted country with her country of birth.
“I was very lucky because Abergavenny is a community driven place. So a lot of people welcomed me. We have so many people from different parts of the world,” she said.
Her role as a teacher gives her the opportunity to bring a bit of African culture to Welsh schools.
“We work with children, teach them African songs and raise money for the charity. So I’m part of the community and I love it. When I’m in Abergavenny I can go anywhere,” she added.