Public Art
I have worked on a number of Public Art Projects around Britain.
The Dings Homezone, Bristol
Above are images of one of my public art projects. This was commissioned by Bristol City Council alongside SUSTRANS as part of a redevelopment of a deprived area called The Dings. The whole are was relandscaped to stop vehicles using it as a rat run. They created what is know as a ‘Homezone’ with traffic calming systems and block paving. I worked alongside a historian and a poet, and in conjunction with the local residents we gathered stories and local anecdotes to create a series of text-based pieces that were built into the fabric of the redevelopment. These pieces have become like echoes from the past. Sustrans (Sustainable Transport) were brought in to encourage cyclists in the area, as this is connected to the National Cycle Network. It was a lovely project to be involved in.
The Domesday Project
Above are a series of pieces around Norfolk based on extracts from The Domesday Book, which give an interesting view back to these early settlements and what life was like back then. This was basically a record of who owned what in order for King William the Conqueror to be able to ask for taxes. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that in 1085 the king sent his agents to survey every ‘shire’ in England, to list his holdings and dues owed to him.
Domesday Book is in two parts, the “Little Domesday” (covering East Anglia), and “Great Domesday” (covering much of the remainder of England. “Little Domesday”, so named because its format is physically smaller than its companion’s, is more detailed than Great Domesday. In particular, it includes the numbers of livestock on the home farms (demesnes) of lords, but not peasant livestock.
The Process of designing art for public spaces
Making Public Art is a very different process to working with an individual client, as Public Art Projects will always have several different groups of people to satisfy.
The “client” (for example Redrow Homes or Sainsbury’s); the public to consider and consult – those who will have to live with the final sculpture; and there will also be Local Authority involvement such as planning and highways departments, and inevitably lots of paperwork regarding risk assessments and method statements.
It can be challenging to satisfy everyone in a committee (or several) but it is a rewarding process when things go smoothly, and at the end of the process when the work is installed and appreciated.
Interested in discussing a commission? Get in touch
