Excerpt from ‘No More Last Minutes’ -a novel for Blackpool Culture Shops 2011

Lisa Wigham is one of five Lancashire-based artists who have been selected to develop new temporary public artworks, to be presented during the Preston Guild celebrations in September 2012 – an historic event which takes place once every twenty years. The other artists are David Henckel, Iain Broadley, Jeni McConnell & Hannah Allan – who are working as a partnership called ‘Collaborative Space’.

Click here for more information about the project and click here to read Lisa Wigham’s blog, which will document the artist’s thoughts and ideas as the project develops.

About Lisa Wigham

Wigham’s work often explores landscape as an autobiographical equivalence or a mirror for thought and desire. Her background as a printmaker and the pursuit of the depictions of landscape has led her to a preoccupation with change of season and its metaphors for human emotions.

The artist employs a quietly playful and poetic use of language to present narratives that prompt reminiscence. Through use of short instances of text – an essence or reduction of information is presented as fragments, where narratives can be teased from juxtapositions. This allows for association between image, site and memory.

Words are collected like ephemera, often while in transit, these themes of transience is the source of the work, and this has been referred to in site specific installations in through-fares and on public pedestrian routes.  These captions of text both fathom and mark existence. They are induced into being, or collected in moments that punctuate time and disrupt monotony.

Wigham also co-founded The Two a.m. Press to make and disseminates artists multiples taking the form of books or editions of prints. These have been exhibited both within and beyond gallery spaces as portable works of art with democratic intention.

For more information, visit www.twoampress.com

‘In The Fall’ Supercollider Contemporary Art Projects 2011, copyright Corrie Wingate© 2011 www.corriewingate.com

Five Lancashire-based artists have been selected to develop new temporary public artworks, to be presented during the Preston Guild celebrations in September 2012 – an historic event which takes place once every twenty years. The selected artists are David Henckel, Lisa Wigham, Iain Broadley, Jeni McConnell & Hannah Allan – who are working as a creative partnership called ‘Collaborative Space’. The artists were selected due to their collective track record of producing engaging artworks, which provide unique insights into the nature of place and community.

Over the following nine months, In Certain Places will work closely with the artists to develop new projects inspired by the social and physical characteristics of Preston. During this time, the artists will record their experiences on individual blogs, where visitors will be encouraged to leave feedback about the work. Click on the artists’ names below to find out more about their practice and find a link to their blog:

David Henckel

Lisa Wigham

Iain Broadley

Collaborative Space

June 2009 | Simultaneous Filming | Cast copies: Florence & Preston (above)

Collaborative Space are Jeni McConnell and Hannah Elizabeth Allan; two of five Lancashire-based artists who have been selected to develop new temporary public artworks, to be presented during the Preston Guild celebrations in September 2012 – an historic event which takes place once every twenty years. The other artists are David Henckel, Iain Broadley and Lisa Wigham.

Click here for more information about the project and click here to read Collaborative Space’s blog, which will document the artists’ thoughts and ideas as the project develops.

About Collaborative Space

Collaborative Space is a creative partnership led by McConnell and Allan.  Since 2009 they have been facilitating a process of enquiry and experimentation to explore the history and function of spaces and objects, reflecting upon the impact these have on individuals engaged in remembrance and forgetting.

Collaborative Space seeks to unearth obscured, unnoticed or ignored narratives connected to the everyday, be that an urban street or object; re imagining and retelling its past, present and questioning the future – connecting people, place and object.

In addition, McConnell and Allan invite visual artists, writers, and performers to contribute to their projects, expanding the frame of reference, and leading to wider mediations on the collaborative process and the nature of creative expression.

Jeni McConnell is a socially engaged artist who explores spaces and places, and their human connections through interactions, interventions and archival forms.

Hannah Elizabeth Allan is an interdisciplinary artist and writer concerned with the archive, mnemonic devices and uncertain narratives.

June 2009 | Simultaneous Filming | Cast copies: Florence & Preston (above)

Clarets Creative project no.5 (above)

Iain Broadley is one of five Lancashire-based artists who have been selected to develop new temporary public artworks, to be presented during the Preston Guild celebrations in September 2012 – an historic event which takes place once every twenty years. The other artists are David Henckel, Lisa Wigham and Jeni McConnell & Hannah Allan – who are working as a partnership called ‘Collaborative Space’.

Click here for more information about the project and click here to read Iain Broadley’s blog, which will document the artist’s thoughts and ideas as the project develops.

About Iain Broadley

Iain Broadley’s practice explores the narratives and life stories through which personal identities are produced. His artworks, which are predominantly collaborative in nature, seek to bring people together through creativity and common interest, and to promote the idea of community. Influenced by a concern with individual agency and a desire for social change, Broadley’s artwork is located within the social interaction and personal experiences engendered by his projects.

Broadley’s most recent artwork, Clarets Creative, brought together fans of the artist’s home football team, Burnley FC. Developed over two years, and supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the project encouraged fans to express their passion for the team through a variety of creative and social activities, which culminated in a wide range of artworks and events.

For more information about Broadley’s practice, please visit www.iainbroadley.co.uk or www.claretscreative.com

gum – painted chewing gum splat outside PR1 Gallery September 2010 (above)

David Henckel is one of five Lancashire-based artists who have been selected to develop new temporary public artworks, to be presented during the Preston Guild celebrations in September 2012 – an historic event which takes place once every twenty years. The other artists are Iain Broadley, Lisa Wigham and Jeni McConnell & Hannah Allan – who are working as a partnership called ‘Collaborative Space’.

Click here for more information about the project and click here to read David Henckel’s blog, which will document the artist’s thoughts and ideas as the project develops.

About David Henckel

David Henckel is a Preston-based artist whose practice explores instances of unintentional collaboration between people, with a particular focus on the detritus of contemporary urban life. His projects are often humorous and have included such things as translating the distribution of chewing gum found on a pavement into a piece of music played on automatic piano.

Henckel has a multi-disciplinary practice, which includes drawing & painting, screen-printing, film, sound and installation. In 2010 he was awarded the public and student vote for work created on the AA2A scheme (Artists Access to Art colleges). Since 2009, he has taught advanced screen-printing at the Bluecoat Gallery in Liverpool, and created soundscapes with residents of Preston’s Brookfield Estate in Preston. He is also the founding editor of “The Two Hats”- a multi-authored website that promotes, reviews and critiques the best of art and culture in Preston.

For more information, visit www.davidhenckel.com and www.thetwohats.co.uk

AND – Audio visual installation “In the beginning was the word AND” May 2011, part of Light & Dark/Motion & Stasis – curated by Chris Meigh-Andrews , 24/7 project space, Gooden Gallery, Vyner st. London (above)

The above video is of a public discussion between artist Shezad Dawood and In Certain Places curator Charles Quick, which was filmed at the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston. It explores the themes and inspirations of Dawood’s forthcoming science fiction film, Piercing Brightness, and includes questions from the audience, many of whom were involved in the film as members of the cast and crew.

Piercing Brightness was shot on location in Preston during summer 2011 and is the outcome of a two and a half year relationship between Dawood, In Certain Places and the people and places of Preston. The film is due for release in 2012 and will be shown in Preston at a celebratory event as part of the Preston Guild activities in September 2012. It was commissioned by In Certain Places, in association with Modern Art Oxford and with the further support of Harris Museum & Art Gallery, University of Central Lancashire, Arts Council of England, Preston City Council, Preston Guild 2012, Lancashire County Council, Abandon Normal Devices Festival and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

Click here for more information.

The film is the outcome of a two and a half year relationship between Shezad Dawood, In Certain Places and the people and places of Preston. The city was the source of inspiration for the film, and the ideal film set, as Lancashire is the UK hotspot for UFO sightings. Using familiar landmarks and locations across the city, the film tells the story of Shin and Jiang, a young Chinese man and woman, sent from another planet to retrieve the ‘Glorious 100’ – members of an alien race who, countless generations ago, were sent to Earth to study and observe. Living through many lives without any scope for return, some have become corrupted, forgetting their original purpose and slowly becoming influenced by, and in turn influencing, their adopted home.

Piercing Brightness by Shezad Dawood, Production Stills, 2011, Courtesy of UBIK Productions Ltd

The gripping story takes place on the streets of Preston, stopping off at the Covered Market, Market Square, Avenham and Miller Parks, New York New York and Lava & Ignite nightclubs, Booze Express on Corporation Street, Hair and Beauty on Friargate and Crown News on Lancaster Road. The film comes to a dramatic close with a car chase sequence, ending up on the controversial Brutalist structure of Preston Bus Station roof.

The Preston-flavour of the film is further enhanced by the involvement of local people, who feature alongside familiar faces including Tracy Brabin and Bhasker Patel. Preston actress Samantha Edwards stars as one of the central characters, Nikki, and over seventy people from Preston feature as extras in key scenes, which were filmed in Avenham Park and the city’s Flag Market.

Behind the scenes photos by Rebecca Chesney and In Certain Places

Dawood describes the concept of Piercing Brightness as a creative hybrid of ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ & ‘Roswell’, and following its release in 2012, it will be distributed to cinemas across the UK and internationally, bringing Preston to the world. The film will be shown at international film festivals and will then return to Preston during to be shown at a large-scale screening as part of the Preston Guild celebrations in September 2012.

The film was commissioned by In Certain Places, in association with Modern Art Oxford and with the further support of Harris Museum & Art Gallery, University of Central Lancashire, Arts Council of England, Preston City Council, Preston Guild 2012, Lancashire County Council, Abandon Normal Devices Festival and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.

The film accompanies a major exhibition of new work by Dawood, which was premiered at the Harris Museum & Art Gallery from 17 September to 26 November 2011, and will tour to Modern Art Oxford and Newling Art Gallery and the Exhchange in 2012.

The video below is of an interview with Shezad Dawood, by Mark Aston, a Preston college student who has created a ‘behind the scenes’ blog about the film for In Certain Places.
Click here for more photos and footage from the shoot on the Piercing Brightness blog

Click here for an article about the film in ‘The National’ and click here and
here for local press stories.

In European cities memory and identity are inextricably linked through the ordering and naming of spaces and the placing of monuments, memorials and other icons of rhetorical topography. In our over-furnished urban centres real and false memory is incised into the city wherever we look, sometimes as an act of genuine national solidarity, sometimes to underwrite a concocted or contrived civic narrative, at other times as an apparent affirmation of local identity.

However, that which is designed to provide a locus of ‘inclusion’ also equally proclaims exclusion; power (as Foucault argued) creates its own points of resistance. Our cities are wrought by political and territorial dispute; the statues, inscriptions, street signs, commemorative plaques and memorials rarely located without complex negotiation, even open dispute because the rivalries for mnemonic space is nearly always fierce and dramatic with political tensions played out vicariously through the siting of civic markers that espouse esteem and status.

Drawing upon memorial landscapes in the UK and overseas, Paul Gough explores the topographies of memory and remembrance, and offers some provocations on why we choose to remember or forget, what we choose to include or leave out, and how we address the ‘anxiety of erasure’ that haunts so many of us.

‘Certain Places, Uncertain Futures’: Rhetorical Topographies and Poetic Opportunities was presented as part of The Monument and the Changing City symposium. Click here for more information about the event.

A rewriting of the imperial cityscape that negotiates new meanings out of the interaction between what is there and what is missing in an attempt to make the urban space speak it’s hidden and diverse history.

This presentation by Lubaina Himid was given as part of The Monument and the Changing City symposium. Click here for more information about the event.

Part of a monograph Creating Memorials, Building Identities: The Politics of Memory in the Black Atlantic which looks at memorialisation and the African Diaspora, this presentation discusses the Memorial for the Commonwealth War Dead at Hyde Park in London inaugurated in 2002. It does so in the context of the history of West Indian, African and African American involvement in the Second World War. It describes the imperial valencies of the monument and the way this undermines radical interpretations of African and African Diasporan contributions to the war effort because it entraps their efforts in an antedeluvian ideology that many of them eschewed. The paper discusses the ways in which French African, British West Indian and African American were engaged in a double fight against Nazism abroad and for democracy and full human rights at home and it is this that the monument fails to acknowledge. The final part of the talk figures what a more successful monument might look like.

This presentation by Alan Rice was given as part of The Monument and the Changing City symposium. Click here for more information about the event.

In this talk, presented as part of the Monument and the Changing City symposium, Dr. Vickery looks at the concept of ‘countermonument’ and considers some of its various forms, such as Jochen Gerz’s ‘anti-monument’ strategies. He constructs an ‘art theory’ of the countermonument, derived from an art historical consideration of various examples, but then assesses this theory for its strategic uses in future public spaces. What is the future of ‘countermonument’ as a public or urban art strategy? Does it depend on historical polemic and a Euro-centric critique of modernity — or can we transpose the countermonument discourse into a more complex cosmopolitan European future?

Click here for more information about The Monument and the Changing City symposium.

As part of the Monument and the Changing City symposium, artist Charles Quick presented Flash@Hebburn, a public art commission for Hebburn Riverside Park, South Tyneside. The talk investigates the methodology used to create the work, and examines the resulting relationship created with the place and its people.

Click here for more information about the Monument and the Changing City symposium.

As part of the Monument and the Changing City symposium, Chris Meigh-Andrews made an illustrated presentation outlining the background, context, operations and functioning of his most recently completed site-specific digital installation “The Monument Project (Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice)”  which produces a continuous stream of live panoramic images from the top of the Monument in the City of London.

Click here for more information about The Monument and the Changing City symposium.

The tour explains the design development of Gilbert Scott’s memorials between 1919 and their completion in 1926. The memorials, in the city square and the Harris, are placed in the context of the national search for appropriate commemoration of the sacrifice of so many that decimated the populations of Britain’s towns and villages. With vague central government recommendations each community produced varied responses specific to unique, local demands. Using examples of Scott’s design drawings the tour explains how one of Britain’s leading architects developed a language of commemoration for Preston that, in addition to the memorials, gave the world one of the iconic symbols of Britain.

‘Certain Places, Uncertain Futures’: Rhetorical Topographies and Poetic Opportunities.

In European cities memory and identity are inextricably linked through the ordering and naming of spaces and the placing of monuments, memorials and other icons of rhetorical topography. In our over-furnished urban centres real and false memory is incised into the city wherever we look, sometimes as an act of genuine national solidarity, sometimes to underwrite a concocted or contrived civic narrative, at other times as an apparent affirmation of local identity.

However, that which is designed to provide a locus of ‘inclusion’ also equally proclaims exclusion; power (as Foucault argued) creates its own points of resistance. Our cities are wrought by political and territorial dispute; the statues, inscriptions, street signs, commemorative plaques and memorials rarely located without complex negotiation, even open dispute because the rivalries for mnemonic space is nearly always fierce and dramatic with political tensions played out vicariously through the siting of civic markers that espouse esteem and status.

Drawing upon memorial landscapes in the UK and overseas, Paul Gough will explore the topographies of memory and remembrance, and offer some provocations on why we choose to remember or forget, what we choose to include or leave out, and how we address the ‘anxiety of erasure’ that haunts so many of us.

Lubaina Himid

What are Monuments for ? Possible Landmarks on the Urban Map : London and Paris.

A rewriting of the imperial cityscape that negotiates new meanings out of the interaction between what is there and what is missing in an attempt to make the urban space speak it’s hidden and diverse history.

Dr. Alan Rice

A Fitting Monument for Black Soldiers in World War II – a discussion.

Part of a monograph Creating Memorials, Building Identities: The Politics of Memory in the Black Atlantic which looks at memorialisation and the African Diaspora, this presentation discusses the Memorial for the Commonwealth War Dead at Hyde Park in London inaugurated in 2002. It does so in the context of the history of West Indian, African and African American involvement in the Second World War. It describes the imperial valencies of the monument and the way this undermines radical interpretations of African and African Diasporan contributions to the war effort because it entraps their efforts in an antedeluvian ideology that many of them eschewed. The paper will discuss the ways in which French African, British West Indian and African American were engaged in a double fight against Nazism abroad and for democracy and full human rights at home and it is this that the monument fails to acknowledge. The final part of the talk will figure what a more successful monument might look like.

Charlie MacKeith

‘Cenotaph’ or war memorial?’ – Tour of the Preston War Memorials, the Flag Market

The tour will explain the design development of Gilbert Scott’s memorials between 1919 and their completion in 1926. The memorials, in the city square and the Harris, will be placed in the context of the national search for appropriate commemoration of the sacrifice of so many that decimated the populations of Britain’s towns and villages. With vague central government recommendations each community produced varied responses specific to unique, local demands. Using examples of Scott’s design drawings the tour will explain how one of Britain’s leading architects developed a language of commemoration for Preston that, in addition to the memorials, gave the world one of the iconic symbols of Britain.

Click here for more information about the Landscape Projects competition scheme for Preston’s Flag Market.

Dr. Jonathan Vickery

The Past and Possible Futures of Countermonument.

Dr. Vickery will look at the concept of ‘countermonument’ and consider some of its various forms, such as Jochen Gerz’s ‘anti-monument’ strategies. He will construct an ‘art theory’ of the countermonument, derived from an art historical consideration of various examples, but then assess this theory for its strategic uses in future public spaces. What is the future of ‘countermonument’ as a public or urban art strategy? Does it depend on historical polemic and a Euro-centric critique of modernity — or can we transpose the countermonument discourse into a more complex cosmopolitan European future?

Charles Quick

Flash@Hebburn: an unintentional monument

A presentation of Flash@Hebburn, a public art commission for Hebburn Riverside Park, South Tyneside.  An investigation of the methodology used to create the work, and an examination of the resulting relationship created with the place ands its people.

Dr. Chris Meigh-Andrews

“The Monument Project (Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice)”

Chris Meigh-Andrews will make an illustrated presentation outlining the background, context, operations and functioning of his most recently completed site-specific digital installation “The Monument Project (Si Monumentum Requiris Circumspice)”  which produces a continuous stream of live panoramic images from the top of the Monument in the City of London.

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For ten years Paul Gough has been Executive Dean of the Faculty of Creative Arts, he is the RWA Professor of Fine Arts, and a founding Director of the UWE Research Centre PLaCe. His research interests lie in the processes and iconography of commemoration, the visual culture of the Great War, and the representation of peace and conflict in the 20th/21st century.  As a painter, he has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad, and is represented in the permanent collection of the Imperial War Museum, London, the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa, the National War Memorial, New Zealand. His most recent exhibitions have been in Melbourne, London, and Wellington, New Zealand.

His published work covers art history, cultural geography, material culture and recent journal papers have examined the contested memorial spaces of cities in England after World War One, the design of commemorative parks in northern France [supported by Canadian government grants], the rhetoric of peace [for which he was awarded an AHRC grant to examine peace gardens in 2006] and the articulation of organisational memory through landscape design. He has addressed conferences in UK, Europe, North America, Australasia and South-East Asia. In 2006 he completed a monograph on the British painter Stanley Spencer, and a new book ‘A Terrible Beauty: British Artists in the First World War was published in 2010. Over forty research papers and abstracts can be seen on www.vortex.uwe.ac.uk/

During ten years as a television presenter, researcher and associate producer he worked for ITV, BBC and C4 on a wide range of programmes from dance to drama, poetry to painting, including the award winning documentary Redundant Warrior, about the photographer Don McCullin. In addition to occasional work on BBC radio, he has a credit for ‘design research’ in the animated feature film,Chicken Run.

Amongst a number of national roles in UK higher education he was chair of the Art and Design panel in RAE 2008, having been a panel member in RAE 2001 and HEFCE’s Research Capability Fund panel from 2003. He has undertaken a number of roles with the Arts and Humanities Research Council including membership of the Peer Review College, panel membership for Visual Arts and Media, a member of the Strategic Advisory Group, and chair of the Commissioning board for the £5.5 million five year trans-disciplinary programme. He has lectured on research leadership throughout UK, in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Paul is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at UWE Bristol.

Prof. Lubaina Himid

Lubaina Himid ‘s work, whether as a painter, writer or with curatorial projects, investigates and seeks to highlight the  contribution made by the people of the black diaspora to the cultural landscape.

Dr. Alan Rice

Alan Rice has MA’s from the University of Edinburgh and Bowling Green State University, Ohio and a PhD from Keele where he undertook work on African American literature and jazz music.  Alan Rice has worked on the interdisciplinary study of the Black Atlantic for the past decade. He is interested in the workings of transnational subaltern memory and in the memorials, physical, artistic and conceptual that African Atlantic peoples have constructed on three continents over three centuries.  This research includes work on literature, visuals arts, gravesites, memorials and museums and some of it appeared in his first monograph Radical Narratives of the Black Atlantic (Continuum, 2003). Alan has been involved as a public academic on the Slave Trade Arts Memorial Project in Lancaster,  in documentaries on slavery and war, as editor in chief of the Revealing History Website and as a co-curator for the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester’s 2007-8 exhibition Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery.

His current project looks at the process of the memorialisation of slavery and racism through case studies ranging from Manchester and Abraham Lincoln to an ethnography of Lancaster’s raising of the first quayside memorial to the victims of the slave trade in Britain in 2005. His latest book Creating Memorials, Building Identities: The Politics of Memory in the Black Atlantic published in November 2010 by Liverpool University Press was written with the help of an AHRC research grant. He is also continuing the work on Frederick Douglass in Britain started in his co-edited Liberating Sojourn: Frederick Douglass and Transatlantic Reform (Georgia 1999) with a new collection to be printed in Slavery and Abolition in 2012 with Fionnghuala Sweeney.  He has given public lectures and keynote presentations in Britain, Germany, the United State and France and contributed to documentaries for the BBC, Border Television and public broadcasting in America. He is an advisor to museums in Liverpool, Lancaster and ManchesterHis articles have appeared in a wide range of journals including, Slavery and Abolition, Atlantic Studies, Patterns of Prejudice, Journal of American Studies and Research in African Literatures. Click here for more information.

Charlie MacKeith

Charlie is a co-director with Madeleine Adams of the architectural practice Research Design. The practice was part of the competition winning team led by Landscape Projects for the reordering of the Flag Market. The team also included Charles Quick. Research Design detailed designs for the two significant historic monuments in the Flag Market. The designs for the memorial evolved from the landscape response to the square and RD’s long interest in the forms of private and public commemoration. The competition winning scheme for Preston City Council is to be phased with the war memorial restoration and additions to be completed in 2013.

The practice is southeast London based (in a restored seventeenth almshouse chapel and mausoleum) with an office in Blackpool. Projects range from work in care settings for intergenerational projects to exhibitions to restoration and new build construction. Two current projects include a new build residential woodland education centre in the Lakes and proposals for the restoration of a war memorial park in Fleetwood.

Dr. Jonathan Vickery

Dr Jonathan Vickery is Associate Professor and MA Program Director in the Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, UK. He has been a Henry Moore research fellow, a director of The Aesthesis Project, and executive editorial board member of Aesthesis: International Journal of Art and Aesthetics in Management and Organizational Life, and reviews editor and regular contributor to Art & Architecture Journal. He has published articles on public art, regeneration and art theory: he has co-edited with Diarmuid Costello Art: Key Contemporary Thinkers (Oxford: Berg, 2007); public art, editor and author of FLASH@Hebburn by Charles Quick (London: A&AJ). He also works as an art critic.

Charles Quick

At present Charles Quick is Reader in Art in Public Places at The University of Central Lancashire, where he has co innovated a new MA program, in Site and Archive Intervention. He has been a lecturer and visiting lecturer at various institutions across the North of England. His work as an artist is held in collections by Wakefield City Art Gallery, Leeds City Art Gallery, the Henry Moore Institute, and he has recorded his artistic life through the British Library sound archive Artist’s Lives project. He has won awards from HEFCE, Arts Council England, the British Council, and various regional awards.

Quick has over thirty years experience in contemporary art in public places, as both a practitioner and a manager. He is the co-founder and a project manager/curator for the In Certain Places programme, an art initiative in Preston, Lancashire. Like a number of his projects, this is situated within a broader urban regeneration framework, and includes a curated temporary public art program supported by a series of talks and debates.

In 2003 he was included in the exhibition Other Criteria, Sculpture in 20th century Britain, at the Henry Moore Institute, which also holds the complete archive of a permanent project The Navigator. His recently completed public art commissions include Red Pass for Berwick upon Tweed Borough Council, and in 2009 launched a large scale work titled Flash@Hebburn for South Tyneside Council funded by ACE. The Art and Architecture Journal Press have subsequently published a book, which examines the project.

Charles Quick has worked at extending the professional scope of the artist in the public realm, engaging with the public, a wide range of stakeholders and communities , including other professionals like architects and engineers. Artistically, he has developed unique interests in the social function of technology as well as the aesthetics of electrical power, utilising renewable energy sources.

Prof. Chris Meigh-Andrews

Chris Meigh-Andrews is Professor of Electronic & Digital Art and Director of the Electronic and Digital Art Unit at the University of Central Lancashire. He studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths and has a PhD from the Royal College of Art. A practising artist specialising in electronic & digital media, he has been exhibiting his videotapes, projections and installations internationally since 1978. His most recently completed work, The Monument Project (2009-2011) produces a continuously updated time-lapse 360 degree panoramic view from the top of the Monument in the City of London and was commissioned by Julian Harrap, Architects.

Meigh-Andrews was chair of London Video Access 1987-89 and has been Artist in Residence in Electronic Imaging at Oxford Brookes University (1994); The Saw Centre for Contemporary Art, Ottawa (1994); Cleveland Arts (1995) and Prema Arts Centre (1995). In 2003 he was Arts Council of England International Artist Fellow in Krakow, Poland. In 2004 he was the recipient of a research award from the National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) to produce an outdoor video installation in Grizedale Forest in Cumbria. He organised and curated The Digital Aesthetic (2001) and Digital Aesthetic 2 (2007), in collaboration with the Harris Museum, Preston and was co-curator of Analogue: Pioneering Video From the UK, Canada and Poland (1968-88) a major retrospective international touring exhibition. (London, Liverpool, Norwich, New York, Toronto, Ottawa, Warsaw, Berlin & Valletta.) and co-curator of Yes, Snow Show  (2009) at the British Film Institute, London. His Book, A History of Video Art: The Development of Form and Function, was published by Berg (Oxford and New York) in 2006 and will be published in Japanese by Sangensha (Tokyo) in 2011.  In 2010 Meigh-Andrews was awarded a Diawa Foundation grant to research early artists’ video in Japan.

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Ticket prices
Full Price: £36 + VAT
Students: £15 + VAT
Tickets include refreshments and lunch.
A limited number of free places are available to Lancashire-based artists and UCLan students and staff.
To book a place, or for more information, e-mail Elaine: info@incertainplaces.org or phone 01772 905414.

Click here for a timetable of the day
Click here for a map of the campus and the venue
Click here for travel information

The Monument and the Changing City is a day-long event for artists, urban planners, historians, public art commissioners and people with an interest in collective memory and the city. The symposium will examine the impact, purpose and aesthetic merit of public commemorative and memorial works from across the world, and the role of public memory within the changing city.

The event will include presentations by leading academics and artists, alongside open debate and a tour of Preston’s Cenotaph, which was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. Opportunities for informal discussion and networking will also be provided during a delicious lunch at DUK restaurant.

The Monument and the Changing City is funded by Contemporary Art Development Group, UCLan.

Speakers: (click here for biographies of all speakers. Click here for presentation outlines )

Dr. Paul Gough
Artist and Pro-Vice Chancellor of University of the West of England, Bristol

Lubaina Himid
Artist and Professor of Contemporary Art, University of Central Lancashire

Charles Quick
Artist and Reader in Art in Public Places, University of Central Lancashire

Charlie MacKeith
Architect, Research Design

Dr. Jonathan Vickery
Art Critic and Writer on urban art, culture and policy, University of Warwick

Dr. Chris Meigh-Andrews
Artist and Professor of Electronic and Digital Art, University of Central Lancashire

Dr. Alan Rice
Reader in American Cultural Studies, University of Central Lancashire

“To Scatter” by Susan Walsh

‘Suddenly Sleep retreats like the undertow of a wave in which a child grasps at a half-glimpsed shell, as I do at this cluster of notes, just heard in a dream.’
Andre Makine – A Life’s Music

To Scatter is a short film, made by artist Susan Walsh as a memorial to Irish migrants, particularly those to Preston and the North West. It explores the significance of music and song as a vital way for Irish migrants to remember events, people from the past and a way of life left behind. To play music, to sing about important issues, events in the news or to mock or joke about politicians or the wealthy, to sing about traditions, family life, love and tragedy has always been a tool for the poor and disenfranchised to vent their opinions. It is a safe keeping place for unwritten views and future strategies.

The film features a chandelier made from a set of piano keys. The piano is an instrument which allows for the integration of Irish music and ballads into an adopted site for meeting and reunion; the church, the public house, the home. This can enable a merging of both Irish and English histories of socialising, worship, contemplation and musical entertainment within a potentially political arena.

To Scatter was shown in St. Wilfrid’s church, Preston over a two-week period.

Click here to find out more about Susan Walsh’s work.

Click the “download on iTunes” button to the right of this post to download the podcast.

Paul Goodwin is a geographer, urban theorist and curator. He is an Associate Fellow at CUCR and Curator of Cross Cultural Programmes at Tate Britain. His research interests are in the fields of the history and theory of urbanism, critical theories of modernism and difference, black French culture and politics and the intersection between critical theories of the city and spatial design. At the CUCR Paul is developing a number of projects under the umbrella theme of Re-Visioning Black Urbanism, an exploration of new modes of inhabiting, imagining and making cities from progressive black and culturally diverse perspectives. Paul talked about these ideas as part of the Place Beyond Place symposium. Click here to find out more about the event.

Click the “download on iTunes” button to the right of this post to download the podcast.

As part of the Place Beyond Place symposium, artist Loraine Leeson presented her work of the eighties with the Docklands Community Poster Project which, over ten years, became the cultural arm of an East London campaigning community. She considered some of the lessons learned during this period which have continued to inform the sense of place in her art practice to this day. Amongst these are the development and representation of alternative strategies as a political tool and the benefits of collaboration across discipline, class and locality which underpinned the work of that time.

Loraine Leeson is a visual artist, visiting research fellow at the University of East London and founding director of cSPACE, an arts organisation supporting local communities in the expression of collective vision and aspiration. Since the early eighties her work through the Docklands Community Poster Project and The Art of Change involved engagement around a variety of issues, particularly regeneration of the urban environment. Loraine’s practice has regularly interfaced with education and since the mid-nineties imaginative use of digital media and the Internet have informed her work with young people.

Click here for more information about the Place Beyond Place symposium.

Place Beyond Place was a one-day symposium for urban planners, artists, public art commissioners, architects, urban designers and other people with an interest in cities.

Inspired by the geographer Doreen Massey’s “politics of place beyond place”, in which, rather than a bounded locality, the city is understood as the product and producer of global relations, the symposium examined the relationship between the local and the global in the context of cities such as Preston (which has a population of 130,000), with an emphasis on participation and conversation.

Hosted in an empty shop, the event included presentations by artist Loraine Leeson and urban theorist Paul Goodwin, alongside tours of the city by artists Rebecca Chesney, William Titley, Catriona Stamp and Keeper of History at the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Emma Heslewood.

The video at the bottom of this page shows feedback from the following four tours (Click the “download on iTunes” button to the right of this post to download the podcast):

‘Tanpopo Tour’ by Rebecca Chesney

Preston is host to intruders, aliens and escaped chancers – thriving alongside natives in back streets and adapting to the harsh, inhospitable conditions of the urban landscape. Have these inhabitants always been resident? Are they accidental tourists or perhaps the offspring of invited guests? The Tanpopo Tour of Preston took participants to some of the weed hotspots of the city – revealing how plant species from all over the world have come to settle in this unlikely habitat.

Rebecca Chesney is an artist based in Preston. Her work looks at rural and urban landscapes, changing environments and human activity. In 2006 Chesney conducted a weed survey of Preston city centre that revealed over 70 different species of plant within the urban environment. With dandelions being one of the most common species in the city Chesney began to investigate the plant further. Her research has led to a trip to Japan where the European dandelion Taraxacum officinale is now considered an alien invasive species that is out-competing its native counterpart Taraxacum japonicum. Click here to find out more about Rebecca Chesney’s artwork.

‘The world through Avenham’ by Emma Heslewood

Emma Helslewood’s tour explored some of the global stories connected with Preston’s first Victorian ‘suburb’ Avenham; an area which has nurtured new inventions, ideas and faiths but also felt the full impact of economic and social change.

Emma Heslewood is Keeper of History at the Harris Museum & Art Gallery with a particular interest in industrial and social history, film and photography.

‘Here & There’ by William Titley

William’s tour explored the idea of hybrid spaces by navigating Preston using a map from Lahore, Pakistan. The physical negotiation of Preston, mixed with the artist’s own memory of Lahore created another space in the minds of participants: a virtual space, a new space. The tour consisted of meanderings through ‘here’ and descriptions of ‘there’ to challenge experiences of place through walking, talking and the imagination.

Often employing elements of community consultation to engage directly with place and people, William’s projects explore ideas of location, identity and spatial ownership. Utilizing local resources to facilitate projects and often empowering communities, his work acts as a catalyst for dialogue and reflection: from archive interventions, documentaries and exhibitions, to private commissions, performative curation and community workshops. Click here to find out more about William’s practice.

‘Banks and Buskers – contrasting threads making the fabric of Fishergate’ by Catriona Stamp

Catriona Stamp’s tour examined the threads of time and interplay of global influences that have come together to create the fabric that is the high street of Preston by looking at the stories behind some of the buildings on Fishergate.

Catriona is an artist whose work examines human interaction within natural and built environments, today and in the past. Within her main practice as a maker of artists books, she combines visual and narrative expression, and incorporates ecological and social perspectives. Click here to find out more about Catriona’s practice.

Feedback from the tours

The Arcade is a soundpiece created by artist, Magda Stawarska-Beavan, which brought the soundscape of Rynek Główny, the main square in Kraków, Poland, to the Harris Museum & Art Gallery in Preston.

The recording was made in the Sukiennice, an arcaded Renaissance cloth hall that dates from 1257, and illustrates a day in the life of Rynek Główny. It begins at the moment the city wakes up with sounds of birds, footsteps of people going to work, cleaning machines, early maintenance and building work and ends with tourists and locals making their way home from bars and clubs. Each hour is marked by a chiming clock in Rynek Główny and a trumpet signal, played from one of two towers in the square. The tune breaks off in mid-stream, to commemorate a 13th century trumpeter, who was shot while sounding the alarm during an attack on the city.

The interaction of visitors with the sound and architecture was an important element of the work, and the piece held specific meanings for different audiences. For a Polish immigrant the sound of the trumpet player from Mariacki Church could have brought nostalgia and perhaps longing for the familiar sounds of the motherland, whilst the noise of a busy arcade had the potential to transport a local Preston audience to a recent past when the city was a lively bustling centre of commerce.

Click here for more information about Magda Stawarska-Beavan’s work.

Clip of soundpiece playing after museum closing time

As part of the In The Shops Now! project, artist Leo Fitzmaurice transformed a shop front into a modern day stained glass window which was illuminated at night.

As part of the In The Shops Now! artist residency scheme, Martin Hamblen worked ’9 to 5′, Monday to Friday constructing a ‘tunnel’ which ran through the middle of his shop.  Shoppers were invited to chat with Martin, or leave him messages to inform his activities in the space.  Click here to read Martin’s blog about the project.

1st July – 28th August, 2009

As part of the In The Shops Now! artist residency project, Teresa and Dominique Hodgson-Holt created an alternative shop in the St. John’s Arcade, where customers took part in a unique performance by temporarily exchanging their clothes for red outfits and taking a walk through Preston city centre.  The project cumulated in a Red flash mob on Saturday 1st August, 2009, which saw 30 people dressed entirely in red take a walk through the city.

Following their residency, Teresa and Dominique went on to take their project to Bury Market.  Click here to read their online diary of the project.

“Red” by Teresa and Dominique Hodgson-Holt.

In the shops! now was an artist residency scheme, in which four North West artists; Teresa and Dominique Hodgson-Holt, Martin Hamblen and Leo Fitzmaurice were offered the opportunity to make new work in empty shops in Preston’s St. John’s centre. Each artist spent one month working in the space instigating collective performances and developing new artworks which were displayed for a further four weeks.

Artworks by Teresa and Dominique Hodgson-Holt, Leo Fitzmaurice and Martin Hamblen

The Family was as a creative evaluation of the In Certain Places programme, which was developed by artist Chris Davis, working alongside the Moores Family on the Brookfield estate in the North of Preston. In 2007, Chris installed a computer in the Moores’ family home, to enable them to talk, via a video-chat facility, with the artists, curators and other participants in the In Certain Places programme.

The family were able to witness and have a direct input into a range of temporary public art projects that took place in Preston city centre during the time frame of the project. This opportunity has enabled the Moores family, who live on the periphery of Preston, to have an active discourse about the planning and the implications expected of temporary art projects in the centre of Preston. They were able to raise issues about their needs and how they perceive the In Certain Places project to affect their cultural, social and physical world in relationship to the development of the public realm
in the city centre.

The dialogue formed a cultural exchange which broadened the understanding of the issues which both parties have to address on a daily basis. The film on this page, gives a taster of some of the conversations between the Moores Family, in particular the head of the family, Pam Moores and In Certain Places. The film was shown in the Guild Hall shopping centre for seven days during February 2008.

Images of “The Family” project.

“The relationship between supply and demand fascinates me. What comes first, the climate that produces the desire for a certain colour, or the decision by the industry to create it? And how do we understand the relationship between local identity and global industry? While all Topshops are pretty much the same, why, for example, does the window display on ‘The Strand’, London, feel more ‘calypso’ than the store in Preston?” Becky Shaw, 2008.

Local Colour was a project, developed especially for Preston’s high street, by artist Becky Shaw after visiting the city’s shopping centre and noticing differences between the clothing ranges on offer in Preston and those in other UK cities. Over the summer months of June, July and August 2008, Becky photographed every item of women’s clothing on display in all of Preston’s shop windows. These photographs were then be arranged to form a series of charts which mapped the ‘local colour’ of Preston’s high street and mirrored the changing colours, textures and patterns as Spring/Summer moved into Autumn/Winter. The charts were reproduced as a set of three special limited-edition art prints, which were available free of charge to shoppers at selected independent fashion shops in Preston. The project was concluded with a performance lecture by the artist, hosted at the University of Central Lancashire for people with an interest in retail, fashion or art.

“Local Colour” performance lecture by Becky Shaw, October 2008.

November 2006 – June 2007

The Preston Market Mystery Project was developed through a series visits that artist John Newling made to Preston during 2006, in which he became intrigued with the city’s historic Covered Markets. In particular, he was interested in the activity of transaction and exchange which defines the markets; both the transaction of goods and the social exchange between the people who work and shop in the space. The project was developed to celebrate this exchange and to raise questions about the importance of the ‘unknown’ within a city, how mystery contributes to a sense of place and what this means in the context of regeneration.

The project prompted a re-evaluation of the Covered Markets and how they could be used, especially in the evenings when they remain empty, or are used as unofficial carparks.

The project consisted of three separate but interrelated events: The Insurance Stall, Voicing Mysteries and The Knowledge Meal. All events were filmed and a publication was produced about the project. This was given away free to people who had contributed mysteries during a public screening in the Covered Markets in July 2008.

The Insurance Stall: 21st – 23rd November 2006

The artist hired a stall in the Covered Market, from which he ‘sold’ specially designed certificates insuring against ‘loss of mystery’ in return for shoppers’ stories of mystery in their lives. Over a three day period he collected 280 mysteries, which included stories of lost objects, haunted houses and even possessed mobile phones!

Images of ‘The Insurance Stall’

Voicing Mysteries: 28th March 2007

This was a twilight performance, in which the artist stood in the middle of the the larger Covered Market and read the 280 collected mysteries aloud from a golden lectern.

The Knowledge Meal: 27th June 2007

From the 280 collected mysteries, John Newling selected thirty which he felt were the most intriguing and diverse. The individuals who had submitted these mysteries were then invited to a three course meal in the larger Covered Market.  As well as bringing together market users, the event also provided an unusual and interesting spectacle for passers-by, who could listen to some of the guests’ conversations through microphones placed on the table.

‘The Knowledge Meal’, Photographs by Alexandra Wolkowicz

‘Thoughts That Make Actions In The World’ is a striking animation that was projected onto the windows of a disused shop unit in St. Johns Centre in response to Preston bus station; a unique 1960s building which is said to be the second largest in Western Europe and is earmarked for demolition as part of Preston’s Tithebarn regeneration.

‘Thoughts That Make Actions In The World’ by Chantal Oakes

The artist created the work in response to her observations of the site, specifically the graffiti-covered backrests which line the bus bays and which Oakes sees as objects ‘annotated with marks brought about as a by-product of powerful thoughts.

“Taking what is essentially vandalism out of its social context to examine the marks themselves I found that the lines all seem concerned with time, thoughts, love and desire. Whether this is because within the site there are no other such distractions or because all the other surfaces are designed with impermeable functionality, the marks do show the very human need to commemorate experience. These annotations are not art in themselves, though they may sometimes look so, but they are communications none the less.” Chantal Oakes, 2008.

The resulting animation is a regeneration of these exclamations, coupled with the artist’s own visual statements of engagement with the site. The installation consists of three screens showing animations, timed to denote the paced appearances of people and transport, and the flow of air, heat, echo and noise, and thoughts while waiting in line.

‘Can You See Me Now?’ is a chase game by the artist group, Blast Theory, which is played simultaneously on the Internet and the real city streets. The game explores the impact that new technologies can have in a city in the 21st century and their potential to offer new experiences of the urban environment. Through a series of research visits to the city, the artists created a 3D virtual representation of Preston city centre, which formed the basis of the game. Between 1pm and 4pm daily on 26th – 28th July 2007, people across the globe were able to explore the streets and landmarks of the city by logging on to the Web and participating in the game. Whilst these players moved through the virtual streets, they were chased by ‘runners’ who, tracked by satellites, were out in the real streets of Preston.

‘Can You See Me Now?’ brought the rest of the world to Preston city centre, and players from as far a field as Brazil and Saudi Arabia logged on to explore the virtual streets of Preston. Closer to home, people could play the game on computer terminals which were set up in the Guild Hall shopping centre and in cafes across the city. Although the game has been played in a number of other locations, the Preston version received the greatest number of hits.

‘Can You See Me Now? on Northwest Tonight

As part of the In Certain Places Talks and Debates series, Melissa Mean, head of the Cities Programme at Demos, spoke about ‘People Make Places’, an in-depth studies of three British towns and cities: Cardiff, Preston and Swindon. People Make Places explores how the best public spaces are created by people and communities themselves and sets out the forms of governance, design principles and everyday uses that can help boost people’s participation in public space and the wider public life of their town or city.

Appearing Rooms is an interactive sculpture by the Danish artist Jeppe Hein, which was installed in Preston’s market square for six weeks during the summer of 2006. The sculpture radically transformed the nature of the space from a short-cut to other destinations, to a place in which people chose to spend time and interact. Appearing Rooms was especially popular with families, many of whom travelled from outside of Preston to visit the work, often armed with towels and swimming costumes!

‘Appearing Rooms’ by Jeppe Hein.

Pam Holmes, an artist who uses photography, worked with black and mixed race Lancashire residents to produce a series of three images, which were displayed on billboards at key entry points in Preston. The images, which were taken in Blackpool, focused on the traditional English setting of the seaside and created docudramas which aimed to deconstruct the myth of England and the notion of Englishness.

Remote Viewing was a seven minute soundscape created by Patricia Walsh, which consisted of an instrumental piece of music and a series of extracts from conversations which explore ethereal beings and environments. The work was played twice a day over a two week period in cafes and shopping centres throughout Preston city centre, catching people unawares and drawing them into the intriguing audio experience.

The talk presents three art projects that are both strategic investigations and proposals for change. In each project the analysis of the existing social conditions are in themselves creative acts that seek to momentarily transform a situation in order to make space for mutual speculation.

muf is a collaborative practice of art and architecture committed to public realm projects.

Barcelona is famously claimed to be at the forefront of urban design after having radically transformed its urban landscape in the 1990s. As cities around the globe are re-designed and re-generated, new public spaces are emerging which foster a distinct urban aesthetic. By focusing on the transformation of el Raval in Barcelona from red light district into a cultural quarter, Monica Degen discusses an important yet neglected aspect in the analysis of urban change in the late 20th century, namely the significance of the senses in the constitution of urban life. She argues that urban regeneration is ‘made effective’ through the organisation of the senses, both in terms of the definitions of the problems in specific places and in terms of the proposed, and actual solutions to these problems. Examining regeneration as a lived and embodied experience helps to answer questions such as: what happens to public life when public spaces are restructured? How do people, whether it is residents, visitors or workers experience regeneration in their daily lives? What are the tensions between official views of the regeneration and lived reality?

This presentation presented the findings of two surveys carried out by the New Economics Foundation (nef); Ghost Town Britain and Clone Town Britain.

Ghost Town Britain highlighted the loss of Britain’s local shops and services and the emergence of ghost towns and communities with few or no services left.

Clone Town Britain: the loss of local identity on the nation’s high streets looked at how Britain’s once distinctive and attractive towns appear to be losing the diversity of shops and services that their characters were built on. The report charts some of the wider forces that are creating homogenised high streets, as well as evidence from around the world of the growing backlash against them.

The presentation suggested alternatives and policy prescriptions that promote diversity and local identity.

Andreas Lang was born in Oberhausen, Germany in 1968 and graduated from the Architectural Association London in 1999. He currently teaches at the Architectural Association, London and is a founding member of Public Works.

Public Works is an art/architecture collective consisting of Architects Sandra Denicke-Polcher, Torange Khonsari, Andreas Lang and Artists Kathrin Böhm and Stefan Saffer. The team has been collaborating since 1998 and specialise in consultation and design projects for public spaces and institutions. Their interest lies in the relationship between institutions that offer and govern public space, and the users of those spaces. Public Works create designs which address and articulate the dynamics and agendas of both groups; to find architectural solutions that bridge the contradicting interests. The group use on-site interventions in order to continuously feed the brief making and design process in both master planning and building projects. Their contribution as artists/architects is to propose and implement communication and physical structures that support and make use of the existing local networks and resources and at the same time offer, propose and stimulate new activities and ways of exchange.

Libby Raper: Executive Director of Culture Northwes

Culture Northwest is a thinking, networking and advocacy organization and was established in 2000 by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as one of eight Cultural Consortiums in each of the English regions outside London. Culture Northwest is a partnership of all the region’s agencies, covering arts, heritage, museums, libraries, archives, media, sport, tourism, creative industries and has representatives from all 46 local authorities (through the North West Regional Assembly), visitor attractions and other private sector interests including Granada Television and the BBC. It believes that culture enriches the lives of all, and that the strength and variety of culture in the Northwest is the foundation of the region’s distinctivess and competitive advantage. Culture Northwest helps facilitate the framework for culture to provide a context in which enterprise can flourish and people can achieve their potential, and focuses its powerful effect on the economic and social success of the Northwest – playing a key role in the region’s continued urban and rural regeneration.

The current Chair of Culture Northwest is Loyd Grossman, who was also Chairman of the judges for the Gulbenkian Prize in 2004 which awarded the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art as Museum of the Year, and commended its Charles Jenck’s designed Landform garden as an “inspirational, beautiful project”.

Charles Jencks: Architectural Historian, Writer and Designer

Charles Jencks, is known for his books questioning Modern architecture and defining its successors – Late, Neo and Post-Modern architecture. Born in Baltimore in 1939, he studied under the Modern architectural historians Siegfried Giedon and Reyner Banham. He now divides his time between lecturing, writing and garden and sculpture design projects in UK, Europe & USA. Over the years, he has lectured at over 40 universities and public museums throughout the world. He has appeared on many television programmes in the USA and UK, and has written two feature films for the BBC (on Le Corbusier and on Frank Lloyd Wright and Michael Graves). Most recent UK programmes he has appeared in include the Opening of Scottish Parliament for BBC Scotland in 2004; and with Melvyn Bragg on The South Bank Show in 2005.

Charles Jencks writes on cosmogenic art, and is also the author of many articles in professional journals (Architectural Forum, Architecture Review, Domus, A&U, AD and many other popular magazines). He has been an occasional contributor to many other newspapers and publications, such as London Sunday TimesMagazine, Encounter, Times Literary Supplement, The Observer, The Independent, Prometheus etc. He is an editorial consultant with Architectural Design and an editor with Academy Editions, London.

As a designer and artist, Charles Jencks is well known for the design of his Garden of Cosmic Speculation at Portrack in Scotland. He also designed the Landform garden at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, which won the Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year in 2004.

His talk combined ideas from his latest book ‘The Iconic Building, Power of the Enigma’ recently published by Frances Lincoln with his design work published in ‘The Garden of Cosmic Speculation’ and also published by Frances Lincoln.

Grizedale Arts is a commissioning and residency agency based in Grizedale Forest in the Lake District of Great Britain. The programme supports artists in making new works that relate to the context of the area. Much of the work made here engages with ideas of romanticism, the environment and the way the place is used both symbolically and in real terms, i.e. what does the countryside do for us and what do we expect from it? The programme engages with local communities and events, integrating artists’ thinking and communication into mainstream and traditional activities.

For many artists the experience of working here demands new ways of working, for both artists and viewer the gallery is left behind. This innovative way of producing and showing art is typified in Grizedale’s annual events, which have, to date, launched artists projects and integrated a large body of works into a cohesive whole. These projects (to date Grizedale Live and Grizedale Show) need to be experienced live, they are interactive and often present existing community activities alongside the work of the commissioned artists.

Bedwyr Williams – Artist

Bedwyr Williams practice incorporates performance (including stand up comedy), video, photography, sound and writing. His work often provides humorous glances into the culture of everyday life in Wales, producing work with an ironic twist. His work has been previously exhibited at the National Eisteddfod and increasingly in the UK and mainland Europe.
After studying in Holland he returned to Wales and was one of the founder members of the Rel Institwt, a performance and film-screening group that convenes in a variety of venues throughout North and West Wales, from back rooms of pubs to workmen’s halls.

In 2003 Williams took part in the Grizedale Roadshow in Blaenau, Wales, during which time he set up the ‘Blaenau Vista Social Club’ in the back of a caravan. In November 2003, Williams developed a new work, Schadenfreude, for the group show Apropos of Nothing, (g39, Cardiff), a wry comment on the established parameters of Welsh-ness and success.

Folly is a non-profit media arts organisation, based in Lancaster. Folly promotes photographic, video and new media work and sees itself as a centre for excellence for emergent contemporary arts practice in the North West. Folly’s roots go back over 20 years to when the Folly Trust was founded. The name Folly was taken from Folly Farm, the home and base for Dr. Philip Henman, a successful businessman, a keen photographer and a support of charitable projects.

Maria Stukoff – New Media Artist working in collaboration with MDDA

The title for Maria’s PhD is ‘Public Art as a Physical Gaming Environment’, and it looks in part at the development of the ‘Digital Corridor’ project along Oxford Rd. as her primary research focus. Manchester City Council’s Digital Development Agency are sponsoring her PhD, so there are likely to be some interesting links created between urban design, public access, gaming, interactivity and playing the city.

The research will assist the City Council’s MDDA to obtain strategies for their ‘Future City’ bringing new media technologies – specifically wireless technologies – into the public domain to experience the city as an interactive game.
Through case studies and quantities research methods the outcomes aim to provide MDDA with the body knowledge to whether interactive game play can be sustained to offer long-term infrastructures for artists, councils, urban planners and businesses alike to develop a creative digital corridor for new audiences and inner city social neighbourhoods.

‘Inspire, Assist, Inform’ is the strap-line of the Wakefield based organisation Public Arts. Through Executive Director, Robert Powell, it is dedicated to the imaginative understanding of, and improvements made to, the public realm. Public Arts has 18 years experience in the field of public art and its wider context of culture, regeneration, economic development, social inclusion, and education. It has created a strong approach aimed at ensuring imagination, appropriateness, and quality within the public realm.

One of Public Arts’ key programmes is ‘People Making Places’, which sets itself the task to “improve regional demand and capacity for high quality urban design by linking communities and professionals, experts and lay people, through an integrated programme of creative activities”. The programme is delivered regionally through wide ranging collaborations linked to ‘real places’ – selected regeneration and built environment sites where development is planned, possible, or underway. A publication of the same name has been produced that aims to challenge standard definitions, working methods, and barriers to change. A part of ‘People Making Places’ is the initiative called ‘Transformation Projects’, which use the skill of artists and other urban designers to raise awareness of the public realm through temporary installation and interventions.

Walter Jack: Designer – Walter Jack Studio Ltd

Walter Jack sees himself primarily as a Designer rather than an Artist. Working from his Studio in Bristol, he is interested in the creation of functional objects – mostly design based – made site specifically for buildings and the landscape. Past works include staircases, shelters and bridges as well as furniture. He enjoys commissions that encourage a re-interpretation of object archetypes and is influenced by architecture – in particular de-construction.

Walter Jack Studio have also completed a number of public artworks in the North of England, including the designs for St. Peter’s Square, Leeds, for which the studio was commended in the Leeds Architecture Awards 2003. He also co-created ‘The Green’, a demountable village green created in conjunction with Landscape Architects Whitelaw Turkington, commissioned by the Regional Development Agency Yorkshire Forward as one of Public Arts’ key ‘Transformation Projects’. The work was installed, deconstructed and re-built in Bridlington, Huddersfield, Halifax, Doncaster and Wakefield, and was titled ‘A Yorkshire Festival of Places’. Public Arts received an award for ‘Best Use of Public Art’ at the 2004 Roses Design Awards in Manchester.

The unique role that Peter Sharpe provides as curator for Kielder Partnership has been hugely influential in setting out and maintaining a well-defined artistic vision for their Art and Architecture programme. The Minotaur Contemporary Maze is one of the latest additions to this exciting visual arts initiative that has already established thirteen pieces of artwork throughout Kielder Water and Forest Park, including the award winning Kielder Belvedere by Softroom and the highly acclaimed Kielder Skyspace, by American artist, James Turrell. A programme of temporary works recently commenced with Nathan Coley’s Italian Tower, an unusual but elegant addition to the north shoreline of Kielder Water.

The Kielder Partnership were short listed for RIBA Client of the Year at the 2004 Stirling Awards, with the Minotaur Maze also honoured for its excellence in design. The jurors praised the commitment of the Kielder Partnership to making projects that bring art and architecture together whilst developing the area as a major sustainable tourism resource.

Nick Coombe – Architect with Stickland Coombe

Architect Nick Coombe, considers that a maze isn’t just the archetype seen in historical or architectural terms but that many things in modern life are mazes as well – such as a dense forest or a tax return. Working collaboratively with artist Shona Kitchen, he is responsible for the creation of the £125,000 Minotaur Maze completed as the latest part of the Kielder Art and Architecture. The maze is constructed from gabions filled in the main with the dark local Whinstone and in the central chamber with irregular lumps of turquoise glass, and complements the two other major permanent works – Belvedere and Skyspace. The winning design was selected by a national-run competition, and beat over 70 other competitors to win the commissioning prize, whilst also receiving some financial backing from a Royal Society of Art ‘Art For Architecture’ grant.

Stickland Coombe have designed exhibitions for Tate Britain, Tate Modern, The British Council, The Arts Council, The Crafts Council and the Barbican Arts Centre.

Before becoming the Chief Executive of Liverpool Biennial, Lewis Biggs was the director of Tate Liverpool for ten years – working on shows such as the 1998 ‘Art Trans-Pennine’, the huge exhibition set astride the 150-mile corridor between Liverpool and Hull. It gave him the taste for larger scale projects, including work outside of museums and galleries, and convinced him that it is in such places that you can often reach a different kind of public and make another kind of art.

An absolutely critical component in the city’s successful 2008 Capital of Culture bid, Lewis Biggs, believes that Liverpool Biennial gives a much needed “adrenalin boost to the bloodstream of the city – one dose every two years” – whilst bringing to Liverpool the very best in contemporary art from across the world, as part of the UK’s largest visual art event. The declared mission statement of the Biennial is: “to establish and maintain a world class contemporary visual art event in Liverpool that celebrates and encourages excellence, risk, creativity, diversity, participation and debate through partnership, profile building, development of art infrastructure, quality access and education”.

Clive Gilman – Artist & Associate Director of FACT

The artist Clive Gillman primarily works within the area of new and emerging media. He has produced works using computers and on video, in sound and using photography, also involving physical public art projects – including large-scale projections for the Liverpool Millennium waterfront celebrations as well as working on the technical management of a whole series of temporary large scale public art projects as part of Photo98. He is active in the development of artists’ access to technological resources, having set up MITES (the national arts technology resource) in Liverpool in 1992. He continues to work with them as well as working on a range of research and design projects. He was the lead artist involved in the design and development of the recently completed FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology) Centre in Liverpool – where he is currently also Associate Director.

During Architecture Week this year, Clive chaired the public forum at FACT, titled: ‘How can cities flourish and what part does good architecture play?’ The Fly – By Night event examined the way that Liverpool and other great post-industrial cities can revise and realize their future in the image of culture and technology. It examined the future shape of investment and entrepreneurship in the city, and how culture and commerce can go hand in hand and how the industries of retail, tourism and hedonism can be owned by the city.

IXIA (previously Public Art Forum), is the national agency for the promotion of public art practice which believes that: “artists working in the public realm make an extraordinary contribution to our experience of public life, and that artists are communicators, facilitators, problem solvers, inventors and researchers”. IXIA believes artists should take creative risks, have a willingness to experiment and often redefine questions and problems without recourse to set solutions.

Nayan Kulkarni: Artist

At the heart of Nayan Kulkarni’s work is an engagement with ideas of site specificity, time, technology and perception. His interest manifests itself in work that is generated from specific concepts, processes or places. He works with diverse mediums utilising light, video, installation, sculpture and photography. The form and content of the work is his response to the site.

He has been interested in the role of art as a means to transform public spaces since 1993. Current public realm projects include: The Belgrave Baheno Peepul Centre (Andrzej Blonski Architects), Bristol Broadmead Development (Chapman Taylor Architects), and The Light Observation Group, Optima, Birmingham. His work has shown extensively in the UK – and abroad most recently in Pakistan. Alongside his studio practice he is, developing other curatorial and publication projects, working in collaborative design teams, and making other site-specific interventions.

English Partnerships is the National Regeneration Agency, helping the Government to support high quality sustainable growth in England. EP’s remit is to: Develop a portfolio of strategic sites; act as the Government’s specialist advisor on brownfield land; ensure that surplus Government land is used to support wider Government objectives; help to create communities where people can afford to live and where people want to live; and support the Urban Renaissance by improving the quality of our towns and cities.

Louise Wyman leads the Urban Design and Masterplanning team within English Partnerships’ National Consultancy Unit (NCU). The NCU is a multi disciplinary team with expertise in Landscape Architecture, Masterplanning, Urban Design, Engineering, Transport, Architecture, Strategic Planning, Project Management and Sustainable Development. Louise has dual professional qualifications as both a Landscape Architect and a Chartered Surveyor. She is responsible for ensuring that the highest design and sustainability standards are realised in the regeneration of EP’s strategic sites, which include 98 former coalfield sites. Louise directs the Art and Identity in the Coalfields Strategy that Working Parts have been appointed to produce.

Geoff Wood – Director of Public Art Consultancy Working pArts

Working pArts is the public art consultancy practice founded by Geoff Wood in 1997 and specialising in the effective integration of art into the working lives of towns and cities. The practice offers expertise, consultancy and commissioning services that focus on the contribution art can make to the development of a humane society. Working pArts now has a national reputation for developing public art projects of strategic significance to the urban public realm. Their approach is based on detailed research into the place and its users – the aim being to establish how the city or place works, understand its dynamics and determine how these affect residents and visitors and then propose ways in which art and artists can bring benefits.

Working pArts are currently developing work on behalf of English Partnerships, on their national coalfields arts strategy. The term ‘at the coalface’ summons up notions of doing work, in real working conditions – rather than simply planning or talking about it – and it is precisely this practical culture of getting on with it, whilst still maintaining cutting-edge’ public art work within challenging locations, that sets the practice apart from many competitors.

The aims of the Lead Artist scheme included the facilitation of greater community involvement in the development of Preston city centre, in order to meet needs which might otherwise go unrecognised, and to provide the development with a unique character, distinct from other regional and national development of a similar scale.   The appointment was also seen as a way to find solutions for integrating the development within the existing fabric of the city and to support a culture of innovation.

Between 2004 and 2007, the artists undertook research and made numerous presentations to the City and the developers. Due to financial and legal issues, the Tithebarn scheme has recently been on hold, but is due to resume in the near future.

The Lead Artist scheme was funded by through by PROJECT (an initiative run by CABE and Arts and Business), Lancashire County Council and Preston City Council.