New Public Artworks for Swansea Boulevard
Date uploaded: December 9, 2014
A new programme of 4 public art commissions will soon be introduced to the Boulevard route along Oystermouth Road in Swansea City centre to encourage exploration, emphasise key locations, and help create memorable experiences of the City that it is hoped people will want to return to.
Swansea Council appointed not-for-profit arts organisation Addo to commission artists to undertake each of the four projects and as a result, American-born artist William Denniusk who is based in Finland; multi-disciplinary architecture studio and think-tank Aberrant Architecture; art, design and architecture practice Assemble and Pembrokeshire-based design duo Freshwest have been commissioned.
Swansea is at a very exciting stage of development that is being guided by the City Centre Strategic Framework – a policy adopted by the City & County of Swansea Council that sets out ambitions for Swansea over the next 15 to 20 years. Its aim is to help make the City a vibrant, exciting, attractive, sustainable and cultured European Waterfront City Centre, attracting businesses and visitors, driving the economy and enhancing the quality of life of residents in Swansea and South West Wales.
The Boulevard project is a key element of the Framework. The project will generate better links between the city centre and the waterfront because of the introduction of high-quality crossing points at key locations. It has also become a far more pedestrian-friendly environment thanks to the installation of wider pavements. Other features of the project have included the planting of large new trees and other major environmental improvements in areas like Museum Park, Burrows Place and Adelaide Street.
The case for public art is recognised in the City Centre Strategic Framework and is a specific element of the Boulevard project. Public art can play a key role in urban regeneration through the integration of arts interventions within the landscaping or architecture of a city, by animating the public realm through temporary and permanent artworks commissioned as a response to the notion of place, as well as through process-based artistic practice that does not rely on the production of an art object.
Subject to planning approval, the artworks will be installed by the end of March 2015. The Swansea Boulevard & Waterfront Connections Public Art Programme is being curated and managed by Addo on behalf of and in collaboration with the City & County of Swansea Council. Funding for the public art is coming from the Wales European Funding Office as part of the Waterfront City regeneration programme, the Arts Council for Wales and private developers.
For further information about the Boulevard & Waterfront Connections projects click here.
