Public art: you wait for the big one, you just have to ride it

ixia’s Public Art Survey 2011: Summary

The most important role for public art is believed to be shaping national and regional identity. This is followed by improving the design of the environment, and then by performing an important social function.

Overall, the survey shows a predominantly female workforce: 64% female vs. 36% male.

Many claims have been made over the last 20 years or so about the value that artists and public art bring to the design of public spaces. The main assertions are that public art:
Enhances the physical environment
Creates a sense of place and distinctiveness
Contributes to community cohesion
Contributes to social health and wellbeing
Contributes to economic value through inward investment and tourism
Fosters civic pride and confidence
Raises quality of life
Reduces crime

Personal Views: Public Art Research Project (2003)
Professor Doreen Massey and Dr Gillian Rose, Social Sciences Faculty, The Open University
Commissioned by: Milton Keynes Council

The report analyses 'place' as an open location where a diverse range of influences meet, a dynamic place created by the ongoing social relationships and negotiations between people that happen in it. The term 'public' is understood as an 'arena' in which many diverse kinds of people can come together and engage, and from which no-one is excluded by poverty, race, gender, sexuality or other personal circumstances. The report concludes that public space depends on what happens in it, what interactions take place to create it. It goes on to argue that identity is not a given based on essential, internal characteristics but is created as a product of interaction with others. Any intervention in a place, be it an object or a set of practices, will make an impact and help to produce that space.

The report concludes that the relationship between an artwork and its audience is complex and unique. These relationships change with time, both at different stages of the artwork's planning and production, and as audiences change over time. The definition of public art offered by Prof. Massey and Dr Rose is: For an artwork to be public, it must invite engagement not only from different groups but between them. 'If negotiation between diverse social identities is not invited, then the artwork is not public.'

Without really being aware of it I have created a public art project which seems to fulfil the above requirements. The Big Flag is grass roots development at its core, simply the combination of an idea, the boldness of sharing it's vision and developing it taking into account along the way community opinion,suggestions and dynamic response. This is all good stuff but to be honest it wouldn't be so bold if it hadn't had outside factors contributing to it as well, for example the physiological change on the sea front in Bexhill called the Next Wave, the Olympics and the torch relay coming through Bexhill, the Jubilee, meeting an arts officer for Rother at a professional development event run by the Blue Monkey network. All these major influences have affected my belief that now is the time despite it being a year too early for me to work on it full time, to act more than any other. I am surfing a wave of opportunity. Completing the most complex puzzle I have encountered yet.

My learning curve is convex in the extreme! I am working my socks off with no money in the bank. Challenging who I think I am, I am acting in faith.

I am doing what I am going to ask others to do too, to try something they have not done before. I am asking sportsmen and women to dance in public! Local sports people who are known well for their skills and achievements in their own field will appear alongside dancers who have never performed using steps or moves taken from sport practise before....This will be a very public art work.

Common threads

Communication is central to everything we do. Its as fundamental as breathing. The universe communicates via light and sound, humans communicate via our voices, feelings and senses, pulses and currents are tracking backwards and forwards constantly carrying messages.

As we are all part of a whole, we are all significant in the rhythm of life. The Big Flag 2012 is going to bring this together in a dynamic and so far untried way in Bexhill. Local sports clubs, dance organisations and students will create a performance based on rhythm, repetition, communication and signalling by choreographing  moves taken directly from each discipline for example footballers might do keepy uppies, rowers might repeat a rowing motion, cricketers might catch or bowl, gymnasts might cartwheel, karate or tai chi pupils might find a position and hold it. All these activities need practise, skill, determination, stamina and patience to achieve excellence and to progress. The great thing is most people do all this naturally because they enjoy what they are doing so much the end result keeps them motivated and as sociable beings we need to feel part of something, to belong.

In bringing these components all together with rhythm and percussion in music the Big Flag 2012 will show the similarities between very different sports and activities from fishing to trampolining and the common threads running through life communicating and linking our every move.

The art is to find and show the threads.