Celebrating Wrexham's markets at new Ty Pawb exhibition

Yorkshire-based artists Chris Woodward and Annie Nelson are asking visitors to the installation at Ty Pawb’s gallery to bring their own artefacts and stories to help create a lasting archive outlining the importance of markets in the town’s past, present and future.

The former People’s Market was the ideal venue, the duo say, to marry their creative touch with working life. They canvassed opinions from traders for their art project, which includes a novel inflatable pop-up deli counter and a soap-making stall inspired by Ruabon red brick.

‘We Can Only See Today’ also combines newspaper articles, many from the Leader, and a new bell which is to be placed permanently in the market.

Annie said: “The idea is that people can bring their own stuff into our research pod such as old photographs or anything they feel is related to markets and that will be kept and archived.

“We’ve had lots of conversations with traders, people always have something to add and we thought it would be really nice if we could incorporate that throughout the exhibition.”

The artists were approached by Ty Pawb 18 months ago and spent time locally researching Wrexham’s history, particularly that of its markets.

Visitors to their soap-making stall can watch as red brick soap is cast into moulds and displayed on plinths.

Chris explained: “It was inspired by Ruabon red brick. We read an article where a councillor was quoted as saying he was happy with the original building of the People’s Market because the brick was as close to Ruabon brick as they could get.”

And Annie added: “The inflatable deli idea came from a deli counter in one of the corners of the Butcher’s Market. You view something in a deli counter because you have come to a market for something different.”

Visitors to the exhibition will get flyers to stamp at trader stalls in the ‘real’ market next door which can be exchanged for a bar of red brick soap on February 10 when the exhibition closes.