28/12/2025 - I saw this graffiti last night but only had my phone on me so went back this morning with the camera. “Cymru rhydd” translates to “Free Wales”, which could be message associated with either Welsh Independence or the Free Wales Army (or both). I think this photo is a good representation of language conflicts in Wales. The graffiti represents the dreams of the valleys population (or at least a part of it) where Welsh is the dominant language, but the English road signs in the background represent English as the powerful language that instructs and controls our daily lives. In the valleys, Welsh is the language of grassroots identity while English is the language of power. There also seems to be slight hesitation in the spelling of “rhydd”, as if the artist spelt “rhudd” before changing the U to a Y, which could be representative of decades worth of attempted dampening of the Welsh language by those over the border. I don’t like explaining the messages behind my photos, as it should almost certainly be left to the viewer, but as this image is unlikely to be used in a project I thought it was a good chance to talk through my mindset when taking this photo and why there might be a bit more meaning rather than just a documentation of some graffiti.