A new set of interviews with the Beacon’s commissioned artists by writer and broadcaster Louisa Buck have been published on the Beacon website exploring how the transformation of the venue included weaving art into the very fabric of the building.
Read the essay online here and explore the artworks for yourself when you next visit the Bristol Beacon.
Field Art Projects are delighted to be working with We Made That to develop a strategy on behalf of Bristol City Council to ensure public art and cultural activation are at the heart of the regeneration of Bristol’s City Centre and Frome Gateway areas.
We are engaging with local stakeholders and cultural organisations to co-define how public art and cultural activation can create economic, social and environmental value in surrounding communities.
The developing strategy builds on the Council’s extensive work into unlocking the delivery of new spaces for culture and community, public art and area strategies that highlight culture as a key ingredient in the future of the city.
Both strategies have been commissioned by the Council’s Regeneration team thanks to funding from Homes England, and are being delivered in collaboration with the Arts Development team.
I’m delighted to announce that the Bristol Beacon has been awarded a Civic Trust Award and a Selwyn Goldsmith Award for Universal Design in recognition of all the different parties, including the artists we worked with, who have contributed to making this such a wonderful and successful building. Since opening the Beacon has welcomed 380,000 audience members through their doors, hosted 726 events, seen over 500 artists perform across their four stages, invested £295,000 in their live music programme and £2 million in their Creative Learning and Engagement programme.
The Civic Trust Awards have become an important platform to recognise the very best in the built environment. Winners are selected on the basis of having demonstrated excellence and innovation in their respective fields and for enriching the physical environment and also helping to create a better sense of place and identity for our communities.
Monday 15 April, 6 to 7.30pm, Lantern Hall
Join acclaimed artists Rana Begum, Linda Brothwell and Giles Round, whose work features at the heart of the Beacon transformation and curator Theresa Bergne for an evening of presentations and discussion about their work and the creative process of developing the art commissions for the building.
Using a range of materials from textiles, ceramics and bronze, the artists have created a series of integrated artworks that enhance a significant civic building. Working with the project team how did they respond to the brief to ‘bring music to life in visual form’? What were the challenges? And how does working in this way differ from their usual creative practice?
To book a ticket, visit the Beacon website here.
We’re excited to share one of our artist commissions, Undercurrents, a sonic ruttier, a poem created by Libita Sibungu that explores Bristol Beacon’s history and position on the water, re-contextualised in resonance with African diasporic experiences and Afrofuturism.
The audio artwork was developed collaboratively through a series of workshops with black artists, writers and historians with a connection to Bristol in response to field and hydrophone recordings gathered in 2022.
The artwork is inspired by a 15th century ruttier: a long poem and map recited and memnorised by sailors at sea to guide them as they navigated. The poet Dionne Brand subverted this ruttier in her 2001 novel ‘A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging’. Libita used both the original ruttier and Brand’s novel as context in her workshops to explore pathways of remembering African Diasporic people living in the city of Bristol.
Libita describes the artwork as “not about an end destination, its about process and reflection to reimagine the present, impacted by the ongoing rupture, the afterlives, of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Whilst making way for the flood, grief and rage that comes with that, for any catharsis to happen’.
In her workshops, co-facilitate with artists Imani Mason Jordan, Kayle Brandon and Felix Taylor, Libita gathered responses in a “listening ceremony with water” that formed the basis for the sonic poem Undercurrents.
This audio work will be broadcast for the first time to coincide with the full moon at 18:00 on 25th January on BCFM and Radio Amnion, in communion with the ocean.
Commissioned by Bristol Beacon.
