Minutes:
Shutter art Patricio
Forester
The Sandhurst Parade Shutter Art Project was funded by the Catford
south Assembly.
I am Anglo-Argentine, I have been given an impossible job to try
and please everybody to create to shutter art projects on Sandhurst
parade.
I do public art, I don’t do graffiti, I settled in the north
of the borough I have been here 20 years since graduating from
Goldsmiths College. I have been working and developing strategy to
make art in the street that generates a sense of improvement.
Doesn’t mean everyone will like it, but they get a sense of
the urban space and how we related to each other. The same way when
you see a broken window, people feel entitled to keep on breaking
however, when people see care and perfection people react
differently. That is what public art is …it’s about
how a group of people can work together to generate a sense of
improvement -
We don’t go away and say hey,
here is the art work, we follow these plans this is the process
that we work to:
UNDERSTAND The space, who
uses it? why? what works? what fails?
INVOLVE
Users Managers Stakeholders Experts To
explore
IDENTIFY constraints eg materials, budget, health and safety,
endurance
IMAGINE Creative directions, Production, options, Media, this is the hardest thing to come
up with the ideas,
INVOLVE
Users, Managers, Stakeholders, Experts, To refine
the ideas
PRODUCE Print, video, events, ceramics, murals
INVOLVE
Users, Managers, Stakeholders, Experts, To evaluate
again constantly talking to the community otherwise we never learn
while things work better than others.
Fabricio showed pictures of the many of the works he is most know
for, including the shirt and ties in Deptford, the cow bins in New
cross, 1000 sunflowers planted in New Cross. They might not see it
as art but everyone will see it as an improvement.
We work with youth at risk, voting to resolve the conflicts,
anxieties about the environment and the complexities of
environmental issues. Turned a water tank into a giant screw. (all
pics available on the presentation document
We were commissioned by the
Corbett Residents Association.
These are some of the problems with the parade we are trying to
resolve: Visually cluttered, Want to bring the shop owners
together, Not very appealing at the
moment, Doesn’t feel like a
destination.
We are doing 2 shops but
hoping to enlarge it start with 2 and move it on…
The brief for the shutters was: Communities coming together, Recognize
diversity, Preserve the beauty of the Corbett
Estate, Capture the spirit of the area.
Easier said than done
The agreed themes were around Greening, unity, people
coming together, the night.
We took the ideas to the Corbett Estate fun day we showed them all
the options and explained the concepts and over 75 people answered
the feedback. The most voted for one was eco planet. I’m not
surprised, it is the most simple and clear design. We got 17 votes
for eco planet, quite controversially the bricks got second place,
I started having my doubts about the bricks. The 3rd
placed was the soft metallic textured shutter. The things people
like about it was the metallic reflective parts. We analyzed the
words used most my the respondents , colourful came out top (see presentation) …this is my
conclusion of the analysis, the eco planet has to be in, but I
challenged that the brick had to be second, this is to do with the
amount of words, that summed up the metallic design,
colourful, reflective, and so on.
To see all the pictures of the designs have a look at the
presentation
Q. What are the shops?
A. Uptown and Good Food Catford
Q. Wont it encourage other people to leave graffiti
A. It isn’t graffiti art, it will be laminated and
protected.
Q. When’s it going to happen?
A. Hopefully in a couple of months…
Q. The images I was shown at the fun day weren’t very clear
– seeing them up like that makes a lot of difference, I
immediately now feel for the reflections one. It’s nice to
see images with light.
Thank you Patricio. Cllr Stamirowski stated that she thinks
it’s a brilliant idea, it’s not a pretty parade,
anything that will make this nicer is always worthwhile.