 public spaceThe interest I have in relationships between art and landscape, nature and culture naturally draw me towards art in public space projects. If I had my way, I think this what I’d do most of. A lot of artists don’t like this sort of work, finding the constraints too overbearing. I have a different approach and find satisfaction navigating between all the various parties; clients, curators, landscape architects and urban designers, engineers and contractors – all with budgets and deadlines and schedules. Art in public spaces often works best when it expresses something largely unrelated to the identity of its maker; offering instead an approach that connects people with place. And I find that the difficulties inherent in the process of making art in such complex environments are more than offset by what one learns in the collaboration as well as the possibility that from all this chaos there’s just a chance that a great work may emerge – one which makes a substantial contribution to the experience of public space. |
