Notes from the THEN/NOW – A Symposium on Public art, Heritage and Ecology
9 December 2016, The Whisky Bond, Glasgow
THEN/NOW was an art project with/for the Forth and Clyde Canal, betwixt Spiers Wharf and Applecross Street Basin. Supported by Creative Scotland, Glasgow Sculpture Studios, Heritage Lottery Fund, Scottish Canals, & Scottish Waterways Trust.
The symposium featured presentations by the 3 artists who made works for the THEN/NOW project and also artists and architects working in public art.
Attending the symposium was very worthwhile as it has been a long time since I have engaged with public art. During the period since, I had imagined that public art had gone quite stuffy and stale. I was therefore really impressed by the presentations that were made at the symposium, as the work and ideas discussed were genuine, thought provoking and refreshing. In short, the rule book was torn up.
Project links:
- Web: http://www.then-now.org/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/_then_now
- Tumblr: http://then-now-project.tumblr.com/
An extract form the THEN/NOW website describes the work and aims of the artists:
‘The three artworks installed in and around the Forth and Clyde Canal, Glasgow are the ‘permanent’, physical traces of a process-led public art project by artists Minty Donald, Neil McGuire and Nick Millar, which took place throughout 2014 and 2015. They result from engagement with a wide range of people, animals, things and communities who use, inhabit, manage or are otherwise associated with the canal and its immediate environment.
THEN/NOW is intended to invite visitors to the canal — regular and occasional — to contemplate the waterway and its surroundings from the perspectives of heritage and ecology. Why does the canal exist? What uses did it have in the past? What roles can it play today and in the future, in Glasgow and beyond?
The three THEN/NOW artworks make subtle interventions into the environment around the canal, using materials that are intrinsic to the location: iron, stone and water. They are intended as markers of the past activities that were part of the THEN/NOW project, but also as objects which might pique the interest of visitors, prompting them to reflect on the canal’s changing status and functions and its connection to a wider network of waterways.
Each work is designed to respond to seasonal and climatic conditions, taking on a significantly different appearance and mood depending on weather and light. The works have also begun a longer-term process of weathering and evolution — the iron work rusting, algae and moss shading the whitewashed lettering, dirt and rubbish gathering in the carved stone basins — changing but enduring, like the canal itself.’
Notes from the event
AM schedule
Introduction by Dr Minty Donald, Theatre Studies, University of Glasgow
In Main Room: Public Art and Heritage —
Tara Beall: Artist & Doctroal research, University of Glasgow, Theatre studies
Presentation on ‘Nothing about us without us for us’, a project that worked with women from Govan, Glasgow. Also worked on ‘Strong women of Clydeside’.
‘Heritage is a process of engagement’.
Spent about 15 months fundraising for an event lasted for 45 minutes, an engagement event that looked at ways of sending messages across the river. They built the most amazing Trebuchet! They also had a large ‘tin can’ phone, a line stretching across the Clyde, but this was a spectacular failure.
Nic Green
Engagement events at disused dry dock on the Govan side of the river. The project was called TURN and it was about re-imagining of space, creating an alternative narrative. They had a choir singing and rang bells, that emulated the banging of steel. This area is a wilderness no man’s land. I used to occasionally go there and wander around when I was a student looking for inspiration. I’m particularly interested in this area, it’s almost like a buffer zone, a no man’s land between the gentrified city on one side of the river and the working class housing on the other side of the river. It has potential to be investigated as a possible art project / work.
Graham Jeffrey (didn’t attend this talk)
In Main Room: Public Art and Ecology: Minty Donald, Chris Fremantle, Dee Heddon (didn’t attend this)
In workshop room**: Workshop Session 2 (repeat of session 1) — The Future Museum (of Public Art): Robbie Coleman and Jo Hodges (attended this). Considering what makes public art?
PM schedule
What Can Public Art Do?
Matt Baker – artist
Part of STOVE project, Dunfries. Very illuminating talk on engagement with local people and also local authority and other organisations.
Normal Process: Risk averse, work in isolation, emotions not part of process
Creative Process: Take Risks, Collaborative, emotions
Carl Lavery – artist
Carl described the different months and the development of the THEN/NOW
Lee Ivett – Architect / lecturer GSA
Fantastic speaker. Believes that the stale and traditional method of sitting with local people, drawing inspiration from photos they bring along and making a piece that ithen has a sense of ownership probably doesn’t work. The way to approach it is to directly make work and get people involved. Lee hit the nail on the head with every point he made. In the era of Le Corbusier and Modernism, town planners and architects built places with strictly controlled space. In other words they had no say. Now architects are engaging with people, making them think what they want. Lee actually makes more art with groups than actually doing architecture. He showed lots of examples of projects and work he has done. What struck me is that he seems to be re-teaching people how to build and make use of materials. For example, recycling old pallets to make something and making a swimming pool out of hay bales and a tarp.
Closing Session