This print by Phil Disley describes an important theme in Garston. The construction of the A561 “Garston bypass” effectively took the life out of the heart of the village, and contributed to the town’s demise. The route is Liverpool’s main gateway to the south. Traffic that once went through the village high street now bypasses [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘art’
February 22, 2008
going superlambbananas
Here are some Superlambbananas I did for the “go superlambbananas” public art event. Including “SuperLambPyjama”, “Supertimbernana”, “SuperRedBanana”, “Superlambbanana in Pyjamas” and a few Zebras and Tigers and things thrown in.
February 16, 2008
take it to the pubs
Last night the SuperWindowTable made it’s debut in the Wellington Pub in Garston. The ‘provisional construction’ brought together some important themes in my project [art, tables, pubs, community engagement, beermats]. It was the feature at an “Anything – Special Edition” night organised by Mike Carney. Mike had done some posters and publicity for the event, [...]
February 15, 2008
dignitaries tour the embassy
This afternoon Alex showed a group of us around the old school building that’s going to be used as the ‘Garston Embassy’ as part of the Biennial’s Peoples’ Pavilions Project. We were joined by local MP Maria Eagle, as well as potential investors from South Liverpool housing association, and other locals who are involved.
The building [...]
February 14, 2008
beuys and beermats
For the past two days we’ve been doing a Studio Six / Studio Two joint workshop, with Berlin architect/academic Mathias Heyden. It was about “A collaborative investigation on social and economical, political and cultural implications within designing the built environment”.
Central to Heyden’s discussion were the theories of Joseph Beuys, an artist who was famous for [...]
February 10, 2008
gathering
Yesterday afternoon, Garston’s bastion of the avant-garde Alex Corina phoned me and kindly invited me to an evening sioree at View Two art gallery on Liverpool’s famous Matthew Street. The ‘independent’ gallery is owned by architect Ken Martin, who’s also the architect working on the Artistic Republic of Garston’s Embassy building. It was a good [...]
February 8, 2008
architects’ journal picks up the story
Two weeks after I started looking at public art in Garston as part of the Interdependence studio, the Architects’ Journal conveniently ran the story as their main feature. The article gives a good overview of the ongoing art projects in the three deprived Liverpool suburbs of Kirkdale, Kensington, and Garston, including the aforementioned “Artistic Republic [...]
February 5, 2008
go superlambbananas
Tonight I visited Static Gallery for the launch party of “Go Superlambbananas“; Hailed as a “mass participation” event (obviously “participation” is really trendy these days), the project will see 100 scaled-down Super Lamb Bananas painted by local artists and taken to the streets. Anyone can enter a design. I’ve already got a few ideas [...]
February 1, 2008
super lamb banana
Commissioned for the Art Transpennine Exhibition of 1998, Taro Chiezo’s Super Lamb Banana is one of the most instantly recognisable and well loved symbols of the City of Liverpool.
Super Lamb Banana represents Garston and global interdependence, by referencing the port’s history of importing bananas and exporting lambs. (In post-war Britain most of the country’s bananas [...]
January 31, 2008
garston declares independence
The plans for the Embassy and ‘Artistic Republic of Garston’ were unveiled with a press release and launch party in November 2007. There were fireworks, music, Trotsky-esque speeches, open-top bus tours, and “lots of Ferrero Rocher”…
The Artistic Republic Of Garston
Garston Is declaring Independence
People of Garston, join the friendly revolution, we need YOU!
Friends, locals and Garstonians [...]
January 30, 2008
the artistic republic of garston
The next step for the ‘Cultural Village’ campaign sees Garston “staking its claim for artistic independence” by declaring itself an ‘artistic republic’… with “all the fun of a revolution, but without the violence”.
The area is to receive a major art installation by artist Michael Trainor that will see a disused school in Wellington Street transformed [...]
January 28, 2008
public art in garston
The ‘Winter Lights Project’ has run for two successive years. In the first year artist Ron Haselden invited pupils from schools to make a drawing on the subject of ‘Animal’ in 3 areas of Liverpool. Three of the resulting Animal drawings were transformed into large scale, freestanding line drawings in neon light and installed in [...]
