stainless steel

Artists Heather Parnell and David Mackie were appointed by Cardiff Council’s Neighbourhood Renewal team to work with pupils at Ysgol Mynydd Bychan to design an artwork or series of artworks for Canada Road.

In considering the site and the school, two themes became apparent to the artists as the most suitable themes to explore with the school pupils. The first theme was inspired by the area’s street names – named after the colonies – Canada, Africa, Australia, Newfoundland and New Zealand. Pupils worked with the artists to interpret images of art, design and botany from these countries through drawing motifs and patterns.

The other theme was textiles since Ysgol Mynydd Bychan has many examples of textiles from around the world hanging on the corridor walls. Textile patterns inspired some of the individual motifs but more significantly, the overall design of the artwork makes reference to the pattern of a traditional Welsh blanket.

The result is a paving ‘blanket’ created from a patchwork of 44 unique drawings by the school children, who were delighted to see their drawings permanently installed outside their school. There was much excitement the morning after the installation!

The technique used to recreate the children’s drawings on the paving slabs is to produce a template for each design with a resist where there is no line, so that when the slab is grit-blasted only the design appears. The indentation of the line is then filled with a toughened paint, in this case a dark charcoal grey colour. The country names are inset into the paving slabs in stainless steel.

The scheme was officially opened on 13th April 2011.

Media coverage: http://www.welshicons.org.uk/news/cardiff/canada-road-transformation/

This project is a celebration of the cultural diversity of youth activities in Barry both past and present. The Domino Club was established in Barry between 1947 and 1951, and involved young people in theatre, performance and carnival activities. The series of slate dominoes, edged in mirror-finished stainless steel have photographic portraits of ex-Domino club members as well as today’s youth, in place of the ‘dots’ on the dominoes. A poem about Thompson Street written by one of the Domino Club members is letter cut into the first domino. The artist Lulu Quinn researched the history of the Domino Club and met with current youth members of Area 41 youth club to involve them in making photographic portraits of themselves.

The regeneration of Barry Waterfront has to date seen significant residential development, the creation of a retail hub and the business and innovation quarter. The Thompson Street Footbridge is a key element in reconnecting the main retail centre of Barry with the Waterfront area. Thompson Street runs north-south from Holton Road to the new footbridge, which connects with the Waterfront area. The Holton Road shopping area was the first phase of town centre improvement works, which also included a public art scheme (see http://www.celfwaith.co.uk/node/1223).

The bridge and artwork were formally unveiled on May 10th 2010.

The vision for this project was to create a new park with a variety of play facilities out of an empty, flat field. Artist Andrew Small was selected to collaborate with landscape architect Ian Maddox on the overall design of the park and to create bespoke play structures.

Background

In October 2006, a report ‘Opportunities for Public Art in Adamsdown’ was commissioned by Cardiff Council to identify opportunities for public art in Adamsdown. Consultation was carried out with the local people of Adamsdown over a three month period and the report identified particular sites and themes for public art, which included suggestions that:

• The work should be uniquely created for the area
• The work, no matter what format it takes, should endeavour to be interactive in some way e.g. kinetic art, tactile art, evolving or changing work
• It should not be a traditional image of public art i.e. Bronze figures/statues like in Queens Street
• The work should challenge or push the viewer, and not be afraid to make a statement
• Sufficient time is taken in the development process of artwork to ensure that the community can build a sense of ownership towards it.

Project

In the summer of 2007 Cardiff County Council embarked on a project to transform an empty field in Adamsdown into a valuable amenity for the local community.

Artist Andrew Small was appointed to collaborate with landscape architect Ian Maddox on the overall design of the new park. Their task was to make the flat open space, used primarily by dog walkers and rarely used by children to play, into a flexible park and play area. The Council held a number of consultation events to find out what the local community wanted and did not want within the scheme.

Among other needs and constraints, Andrew Small and Ian Maddox aimed to create:

• sheltered spaces, since the field was windswept at times
• a designated space for children to play, where dog walkers would not go
• a defined ‘kick about’ area which allowed enough space for a game of football but which could also be safely walked around by others using the park
• creative play equipment aimed at a younger age group (11 and under)
• pathways and seating so that the whole of the space would be used
The result is a park with three main areas:
1. a defined play area at the front (along Constellation Road) with play structures designed and made by Andrew Small on a child safe surface;
2. a kick about area in the middle of the field with low mounding around it on both sides to define the space and protect people walking along the path from finding themselves in the middle of a game!
3. A less formal play area at the back of the field with a high mound incorporating a slide and other structures around it for climbing, swinging and jumping off.

Having developed a number of concept designs for various play structures, Andrew Small was commissioned to create two of them and consulted with a Health and Safety specialist at the detailed design stage. Andrew then fabricated these two structures which he called the Spending Time Machine and the Triphid. The Spending Time Machine is a curved wooden platform with a series of stainless steel arches above it as a roof. Children climb inside it and on top of it, and slide and run up and down the curved surface. It can be anything they want it to be – a space ship, a boat, a house, a den, a tunnel, a submarine, a cave and so on. It is a structure which allows their imagination free rein.

The Triphid is a climbing and balancing structure in galvanised steel, painted a deep blue. The tentacles can be climbed, swung on, walked along, and the soft ‘wet pour’ surface on the ground ensures that children can be more adventurous and risk falling off. The coloured patterns on the soft surface complement the Triphid and can form part of its use in a game.

These days, at the time when the school day has just finished you’ll see many children making full use of Anderson Field, whereas before the park was created, it would have been an empty site.

read more at
http://www.andrewsmall.org.uk/Andrew_Small/Blog/Entries/2010/3/14_Anders...