Regional Newsletter: Spring 2002
Public Art South West - Activities
Public Art South West is a service of South West Arts. It aims to develop a wide range of opportunities for artists and craftspeople to contribute in diverse and innovative ways to our build and natural environment. Public Art South West takes a leading role in co-ordinating a range of strategies for public art development in the region. In achieving its aims, Public Art South West works in partnership with a broad range of organisations and individuals in the public and private sectors, including local authorities, health trusts, environmental groups, and the educational sector; and with architects, designers, planners, developers, artists, arts administrators and many others.
Recent projects and initiatives include:
Resources: www.publicartonline.org.uk - Recent research into the usage of the site has revealed that the most popular category is the Case Studies, however due to the detailed nature of these we decided to complement them with a new category of 'Thumbnail Studies' which allow us to bring a synopsis of interesting projects to you on a more regular basis. Visitors to the site are staying for longer and visiting more pages and our European and USA market continues to grow with overall visitor figures now representing on average 70% of visitors to the site. This research has pointed out that we need to market this resource more strongly to our home market; which we hope to be able to do during the course of the coming year. The site continues to be updated monthly; so keep an eye out for current news and opportunities.
New Initiatives:
Work on the 'Designing our Environment : Towards an Architecture and Built Environment Strategy for the South West' continues, as can be seen from the report in this issue on our November Regional Network Meeting. Since that meeting we have had more feedback as a result of a wider consultation process and the 'Implementation Group' had met to look at future action. PASW is also closely involved with the developing Regional Centre of Excellence.
Local Authorities:
In partnership with South Gloucestershire, Bath and North East Somerset and Bristol City Council we organised a seminar 'Good Contractual Practices' led by the Barrister Henry Lydiate. We particularly focused on solicitors within these local authorities as the intention behind the seminar was to review current practices within the region, share good practices and develop action plans for improvements particularly in relation to contractual issues. The session was intended as a pilot, with the aim of evaluating the success and impact of this approach, and then 'launching' the seminar regionally. The feedback we have had has been particularly encouraging and therefore we hope to be able to offer this seminar to other local authorities during the course of the coming year.
We continue to work closely with a range of local authorities throughout the region; our work with South Hams District Council has resulted in the formulation of a public art policy and Cotswold District Council have now developed a public art strategy and information pack and are in the process of appointing a part time public art officer.
Maggie Bolt, Director, PASW