Gwanwyn
Gwanwyn Festival 2024: Celebrating ‘change’. Changes we’ve made, changes we’ve seen, and how change inspires us to be creative in older age.
Gwanwyn is a month-long national festival held across Wales in May each year, showcasing creativity in older age. Since 2007, Gwanwyn has worked with artists and organisations of all sizes to promote a wide range of arts activities, from stand-up to stitching, from Bollywood to book clubs.
Gwanwyn Festival offers opportunities for older people to become involved in arts and creative activities, either as practitioners, organisers or audience members. Gwanwyn Festival also helps older people to recognize the benefits that being creative can bring to their health and well-being.
The theme for May 2024 is ‘change’. We’ve been inspired by older people that have created cultural change in Wales, and want to know what change means to you.
As part of our Gwanwyn festival, we’re highlighting older people that have challenged stereotypes of ageing or have been trailblazers in their fields.
Changemaker project
We’d love to discover your favourite older change-makers. Do you know someone 50+ who has made a difference to you, locally, or in Wales? Then why not nominate them and tell us how they’ve made a difference. People like Mary Lloyd Jones.
Mary Lloyd Jones is one of Wales’ most popular and established artists and author.
Mary was born in Devil’s Bridge in 1934 and attended Cardiff Art School. She is greatly inspired by the Welsh landscape and her work draws on the influence of ancient cultures and languages. She didn’t exhibit her work publicly until her thirties.
Like all artists, Mary needed to find her artistic voice, and this is something that’s evolved gradually with certain landmarks of enlightenment with her roots lying in the Welsh language.
In 2016, Mary was the recipient of the Glyn Dwr Award for an outstanding contribution to arts in Wales. In April, of the same year, she was accepted as a member of the Learned Society of Wales. She has received two honorary fellowships to Trinity College
How do I nominate a changemaker?
Please download and complete the form below, this will ensure we have all the information we need. We’ll also need a photo of the person you’re nominating. Please ensure you have their permission to send us their photo. If you’re sending your photos to us by email, please sent it to us either as a jpeg or png. If you’re sending your photos by mail, please ensure you include this with your nomination form.
We'll post all the submissions onto our Changemakers Gallery on our website.
Please send your completed nomination form and photos by email to gwanwyn@agecymru.org.uk or by post to
Age Cymru
Change Makers Project
Mariners House
Trident Court
East Moors Road
Cardiff, CF24 5TD
Please ensure you include their photo when submitting this application. Please note that we unfortunately cannot return any photos sent to us.
To keep up to date with news and find out how you can get involved in Gwanwyn Festival, join the mailing list by emailing gwanwyn@agecymru.org.uk
