When The Fun Fizzles, by Gareth Williams, takes a documentary approach that includes his own photography and abstracts from historic John Hinde postcards that offer a hint of his upbringing. Williams’ work focuses on Barry Island and how when you peel back the surface layer of seaside romanticism and charm, we are greeted with its unsettling darker side, at times imbued with an oppressive intimacy. Nostalgia cements lifelong feelings, and as a child his eyes only saw the world with rose tinted vision. The grandeur of Barry Island though has now faded. Eyes opened, he sees what's really there. Barry Island has become blanched and the pedestal it once had is now tarnished and tired, showing that the seaside can be a place of privilege but also great poverty. Williams’ images provide an antidote to the easy assumptions about the great British seaside.
