Voices From Cardiff

We speak to Jon Ruddick from SHIFT, a sound collective based in Cardiff, supported by the Axis Vacant Space scheme.

Jon  Ruddick is a Cardiff-based sound artist, curator, and co-founder of SHIFT Cardiff CIC, a creative collective and space for experimental sound and visual arts in Wales. With over two decades of experience performing across the UK and Europe, Jon’s work spans solo improvisation, collaborative scores, and workshop facilitation. Under his guidance, SHIFT has become a vibrant hub for emerging artists. Blending sound and installation, it holds space for experimental happenings, encouraging artists to pursue the unusual within a collaborative, supportive environment. Thanks to SHIFT, many smaller organisations have been able to develop their own identities within the care of the basement, using it as a launchpad to grow their vision and communities.

Can you tell me about what you’re doing in this space and how it came about?

We found out about the space at the Capitol centre Cardiff in September 2018 and dived straight in. The space we were offered was a large basement space in the centre of the city, and we knew that we wanted to make it as useful as possible to as many artists as we could. The whole thing is an experiment, so we encouraged people to do work in short-term residencies that got them out of their comfort zone: it’s not permanent so you’ve got nothing to lose by trying something new. The basement is the perfect space to experiment with sound, so from the start it became a place where a lot of visual artists tried playing around with performance for the first time and we attracted more sound artists who wanted to work in a more visual way, with different types of performance. Over time we have divided the space up for permanent studios for our members and another space for workshops and sound. 

How has the space shaped your work or your approach to collaboration?

The spaces we use dictate what we do. The basement space is huge, so it would’ve been difficult to divide it up, so we embraced the idea of a big open plan space, to help people to get to know each other, find out about each other’s work. Society often encourages us to be individualistic, but the basement rejects that - if you come down here you’re part of it. This space helped me get out of my comfort zone too, to listen more to people and learn from others. Collaboration can be challenging but rewarding, so it is important to keep challenging yourself. 

Has this space helped create a sense of community, and what’s come out of that connection?

The residencies early on brought us into contact with so many different artists working in different ways. It was a steep learning curve and taught us so much about the needs of our community and how different people work. It was exciting straight away and that infectious atmosphere made it easy to establish bonds with each other. Last year we did a project called Carnedd which gave us a different space in Cardiff for 6 months, a whole building, and officially joined together the organisations TactileBOSCH and Umbrella with what we're doing in SHIFT so that pushed us forward to work in a new way. The size of our community ebbs and flows but we keep true to our core ethos and that allows for that. 

What challenges have you faced, and how have you navigated them?

We have been in the basement space for almost seven years, but we are never sure how long we will be able to stay here, so it's hard to make long term plans. The more time you spend somewhere the more you get to know the building and build up a network with artists and audience, but you know that will get disrupted at one point. We learned to just see it as a positive, embrace the temporary nature of things and use it as a catalyst, as a deadline. The time is now. 

What do you think this kind of activity brings to Cardiff’s art scene right now?

We've shaken up and changed Cardiff's art scene for the better. More spaces are seeing the possibility of art collectives and are trying to refocus on their community as artists and looking at sound and performance. That's a real positive for us because it makes the whole scene stronger. Things are really tough in Wales, it has the least amount of funding in the UK, with the worst transport system, which means that the work we're doing starting WEMA (Welsh Experimental Music Alliance) and our cross-city working across South Wales and the West of England means that we can help artists and scenes connect better.

How do you imagine the future for the Arts in Cardiff?

Arts funding all over the UK is under threat (especially Wales) and we will keep fighting for more, but our model is to pull back into our community and care less about the inequality of competition the old models encourage. Putting the control of spaces back into the hands of artists is the best way to do that. We are stronger together, we can support and help each other and that way we won't be as reliant on gatekeepers. More spaces, more opportunities is the only future.

For more information about Axis Vacant Space, visit here.

All image credit to Paisley A Randell Shillabeer, 2025.