Go Public - the winning projects!          

An open Door

A public realm project devised and led by Lorna Giezot

The concept is to create and install a door and doorway out of translucent resin in an outdoor public setting with built-in subtle lighting to activate the sculpture in both the day and night time settings. The inspiration came from researching metaphors for access, restriction and opportunity, with the door being a universal symbol to all members of society.

Doors represent a spectrum of emotions depending upon how they are presented. There are notions of prevention and ‘the unknown' when closed, secrets and the forbidden when locked, but also of opportunity, adventure, possibilities and the future.

The resin has a quality that ‘gives off' light which would be integral to the piece, aiming to invite viewers to approach, touch and interact with the piece. It feels ‘warm' to the touch unlike glass or metal, affirming the invitation and encouraging a sensory experience.  Inviting the audience to touch also breaks down notions of art is only to be seen and not handled.

Public consultation will be an integral part of the project to engage people as to their relationship with the things that provide access, opportunity and restriction in our environment and our lives. A series of workshops will be held with a cross section of the community to discuss ideas contribute to the project.

Being Me Being

First Impressions

A public realm project devised and led by Zoe Partington-Sollinger

First impressions is an artistic concept about utilizing digital technology to play, research and capture the bio-medical data of disabled participants and non-disabled people to record their heart rate, temperature and brain activity of their journeys through the public realm. It enables the artist to investigate and capture bio-medical data about how disabled people feel emotionally and physically about their experiences in their streetscape. The data enables comparisons and contrasts to be made between the same journeys that non-disabled people take. These journeys will also capture the participants narration/description of their route and a small camera will film the entire journey to back up our research. The bio-medical data collated will be used by the artist in experimenting with the development and manipulation of audio-visuals which will be projected into installations spaces to create an emotional space that reflects disabled people's feelings about designed public environments.

The impact of design and or lack of design can have a significant effect on the persons ‘well being' and emotional psychological experience of the space they find themselves in and this will be the first time that bio-medical data captured in this way can formulate a thought provoking installation with many learning outcomes and viewpoints. The creative element is drawn out by the artist in the interpretation of the  bio-medical data to highlight the issues and differences between how environments impact on people psychologically. The end result will in itself have an impact on the viewer and encourage them to re-define how they may read a streetscape and how disabled people read/orientate in a streetscape and use new technology to capture bio-medical data to influence how urban designers, planners create and design space for people.

Read Zoe Partington-Sollinger's Blog and keep up to date with her process as the project develops.