Harris Flights
2013
In Certain Places worked with architectural practice Research Design to examine the original plans for the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, drawn up by architect James Hibbert, and to create a new temporary staircase, which invited people to move directly from the space of Preston’s Market Square into the heart of the Harris building. The Flights took people through the ‘front door’ of the building on the first floor, allowing them to experience the neo-classical, Grade I listed building in an entirely new way.
Level Playing Field
2013
Level Playing Field (2013) was a temporary public work by artist David Cross which was designed to socially engage with the people and place of earthquake ravaged Christchurch New Zealand. In February 2011, Christchurch was hit by a number of earthquakes the largest of which measured a magnitude 7 killing 185 people and levelling the city to the ground. Christchurch has since been considered as the worst damaged city since the firebombing of Dresden in WWII.
The City Speaks
2017
The City Speaks was commissioned as part of Hull UK City of Culture 2017 and designed to act as a 21st century Speakers’ Corner in which open-air public speaking took on epic proportions as spoken words were translated to text and relayed on one of the towers supporting Hull’s tidal barrier.
The Story of Doe Lea
2018
The Story of Doe Lea was an interactive project, using film, photography, events, walks, talks and workshops to engage local residents in portraying the story of the village of Doe Lea.
Thamesmead Cultural Strategy
2018 – ongoing
As Part of Peabody’s long-term regeneration plans to realise Thamesmead’s potential and build 20,000 new homes, they are embedding culture into the heart of their plans from the beginning. Their cultural strategy ensures that they work with local communities to create culture as part of daily life, and partnerships with local and international partners has enabled them to raise the profile and ambition of Thamesmead and put it on the map.
Writing on the Wall
1991 – 2002
Photographs of the Jewish quarter in Berlin from pre-world war II were projected on the buildings and streets where they were originally taken and then photographed to remind the city of a part of its identity sometimes forgotten.
The People’s Canopy
2015 – 2016
The People’s Canopy was a mobile architectural structure designed specifically for the city of Preston by award-winning Beijing architects People’s Architecture Office. The People’s Canopy was a two-storey high expandable roof structure on bicycle wheels. The ten units were designed to collapse to the size of a double decker bus to be pedalled from one location to another and thereby transform underused public spaces; spaces for auto transport are turned into spaces for pedestrians and events, and open streets connected. The aim of the project was to develop a bespoke, temporary architectural intervention for Preston that would create new, visible connections between the university and the city centre, as well as celebrate UCLan’s international links.
Longbridge Public Art Project (LPAP)
2012 – 2019
Longbridge Public Art Project (LPAP) by WERK was a contemporary art project embedded in one of the largest suburban regeneration schemes in the U.K. The scheme led by St. Modwen PLC transformed the area that was once the site of a thriving motor factory (1905-2005) and infamous political emblem of British Manufacturing into a new town.
Speed of Light
2012
After the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, which caused seven meltdowns at three nuclear reactors, energy efficiency and alternative energy sources received intensified interest in Japan. One year later, the 2012 Smart Illumination Yokohama Festival commissioned the international debut of Speed of Light. The festival focused on sustainability and showcased LED lights, solar panels, and other green energy generation and storage techniques. Speed of Light, an artistic intervention, was developed by NVA, a Scottish public art organization whose work seeks to redefine urban and rural landscapes through collective action. NVA is an acronym of nacionale vitae activa, a Latin phrase describing ‘the right to influence public affairs.’
Temporary Public Gallery
2010
In 2010 The Propeller Group rented a public billboard at a bus shelter in Ho Chi Minh City for 3 months to stage a public art project. A shrewd and insightful move in a country where all visual elements in the landscape— from public art to advertising—are controlled through different censorship bodies, Temporary Public Gallery was intended to explore matters concerning public space, public art, privatized commercial space and the politics/ censorship behind the regulation of these spaces in Ho Chi Minh City. This project began with the group’s interest in how the visual elements of a landscape not only reflect the socio-political changes of that locale, but can have an affect on it as well. Expressing a desire to see how they could contribute to this affect in the rapidly changing landscape of Viet Nam, the collective attempted to locate a loophole in the system by renting out advertising space to curate artworks in public, challenging notions of public space, advertising, and public art in Viet Nam.
Sandy Carpet
2008 – ongoing
The Sandy Carpet known as Farsh Sheni is a sand made carpet created annually, which has been crafted for the past 6 years on the southern island of Hormuz in Iran, Persian Gulf. The outstanding character, which makes this extraordinary carpet unique, is the application of more than one hundred colorful sands, which have been excavated from local mines and hills on this island.
Théâtre Source
2010 – 2013
The 1000 families residents of Ndogpassi III in Douala, Cameroon, are mainly migrants from the hinterland in search of a better future. The government has no answer to this influx of people and are indifferent to their welfare. Basic services such as water, electricity and garbage collection are often missing.
Conflict Kitchen
2010 – 2015
Located in a kiosk within the park surrounding the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, Conflict Kitchen is both a restaurant and a socially engaged public art project that only serves cuisine from countries with which the USA is in conflict. The project, created by Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski, rotates identities every few months in relation to current geopolitical events and has included North Korea, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela. The current version of Conflict Kitchen is Afghanistan.
Undergo.The Parallels
2012
The exhibition project Undergo.The Parallels took place in 2012, in Tbilisi pedestrian underground passages, involving 29 artists and collectives included emergent local ones. For 70 years Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, had been part of the Soviet Union, that built the underground passages. Nowadays these undergrounds are still under development, in some of them new “organized” commercial infrastructures are built beside the unofficial ones, others are under the danger of collision and have lost their practical function, becoming a place for garbage or public toilets.