PASW Regional Newsletter: Spring 2002
Regional Projects - Bristol Legible City
city centre : outer neighbourhoods
A new strategy and action plan for public art in Bristol encourages the commission of high quality artworks made specifically for the public realm by artists, makers and designers. It aims to profile the value and potential of public art as part of social investment: in new and refurbished housing, improvements to open public space, children's play, arts and health initiatives, towards creative and neighbourhood renewal. Bristol City Council has established two new posts - Senior Public Art Officer and Art Project Manager to assist the application and delivery of a Public Art Policy adopted in 2000 which aims to integrate the arts within high quality urban design and enable artists to be involved in collaborative design at the earliest possible stage.
Buoy: Artist: Seamus Staunton: Photo: John MartinPhotography
Bristol Legible City - aims to add or uncover layers of information and meaning to places and routes - was launched in Millennium Square in February 2001 with Walkie Talkie a 600 metre pavement poem written and devised by Bristol poet Ralph Hoyte and artist Colin Pearce. In November as part of the Legible City programme, High Life was created by Lead artist FAT - Fashion Architecture Taste - and eight commissioned artists to produce contemporary interpretations of the bird box for Queen's Square in Bristol.
Public art strategies as part of large scale capital development of Broadmead Shopping Centre and Canon's Marsh on Harbourside promote the role and value of artist's as part of planning and design teams to add status to the architectural environment and give character and quality to new building developments in a city ambitious to become European City of Culture in 2008.
In Bristol, public art aims to empower and involve local communities in creative renewal, to demonstrate new links between arts and health for example as part of the Knowle West Health Park Arts Programme and within a new Healthy Living Centre in Barton Hill.
Public art is seen as vital to creating an environment in which people want to live and work. Artists are working alongside architects, planners and the local community.
Megan Lloyd Davis Bristol Evening Post 31 July 2001
For further information about Bristol's public art programme contact:
Senior Public Art Officer: [email protected] tel: 0117 922 3466
Art Project Manager : [email protected] tel: 0117 922 3064.