This is the Profile on Culture Colony Y Wladfa Newydd for the Creative Wales Awards - Dyfarniadau Cymru Greadigol.

These awards are about creating the space for artists to create. They offer the equivalent of what in other fields is known as R&D - research and development. In a recession in industry and its productive capacity, R&D can be under pressure. In the most recession proof however, it is what a company can perhaps choose to invest more in, as the paths to renewal and "profit" lie there. In creativity, art, and the building of cultural capital, it is the stage which cannot be missed out.

If it is, then the run of the mill, the average, the routine, results and art is nothing if it does not delight, challenge and change.

Over seven years, over a hundred artists have had what now in total amounts to an investment of over a million pounds in their creative individual time. Over this winter as the latest round of awards is made, a round which has brought to the fore a whole new set of artists and disciplines within their art which the scheme has found an elasticity to respond to – Arts Council of Wales will be reviewing what the scheme has meant for its recipients over time since 2003 and looking to tell some of the stories of how this investment in the creative individual plays back into the bigger picture of Wales.

David Alston
Arts Director, Arts Council Wales