Field | Art Projects

30 | 11 | 2023

Bristol Beacon Reopens with Artist Commissions at its heart

We’re delighted to announce that the Bristol Beacon reopens today after five years.  At the heart of this transformation project are the works of four artists: Rana Begum, Linda Brothwell, Giles Round and Libita Sibungu. 

After five years, the Bristol Beacon opened its doors with a new piece of music from the pioneering Bristol-based Paraorchestra, who have collaborated with celebrated electronic composer Surgeons Girl and AV experts Limbic Cinema to create an audio-visual collision of sound and light, ‘Trip the Light Fantastic’.

The evening was followed by a Housewarming event at the weekend which saw 20,000 people celebrate the venue in a free, day-to-night festival with over 60 acts, from grassroots groups to well-known bands.

Mayor Marvin Rees described the building as “a 100-year legacy for Bristol; it is a venue designed by the people of Bristol, for the future of Bristol.”

The four artist works bring a contemporary response to the building designed by Levitt Bernstein Architects, and add a richness to its interior whilst drawing on its history.

We will be sharing more images later this month, but in the meantime you can read more about the project here.

Curated and Produced by Field Art Projects and commissioned by Bristol City Council.

06 | 06 | 2023

Bristol Beacon announces artist commissions

I’ve been working with artists Rana Begum, Linda Brothwell, Giles Round and Libita Sibungu on a series of commissions as part of the Bristol Beacon refurbishment project.

The artworks are a response to this iconic building, its history, architecture and role as a venue for music-making.  They include the textiles and fabrics within the new performance spaces, an architectural installation within the historic Lantern space,  a contemporary intervention on the façade of the Lantern building, and a work that draws on Bristol Beacon’s relationship with the water that surrounds and flows through the city.

You can read more about the project here and look out for further posts later this year as we begin to share the development of each of the commissions.

Commissioned by Bristol City Council.

29 | 10 | 2021

Artist Talk with Alice Channer, Wednesday 17 November

Please join us at Arnolfini on Wednesday 17 November for an artist talk with Alice Channer.

Alice Channer (b. 1977) is a London-based artist working with sculpture who has exhibited internationally for the past 15 years. Over long periods of time, she immerses herself in industrial and natural materials and production processes to find forms to develop as sculpture. Her method is both experimental and precise, collaborating with people, machines, and materials to bring multiple bodies and voices into her polyphonic works.

In this talk, Channer will use words, images and objects to talk about her first public sculpture, Nanowires, commissioned for the new Engineering Building at The University of the West of England, curated and produced by Field Art Projects.

The artist will describe the processes of exchange, collaboration, endeavour and imagination that built the sculpture. The talk will discuss Nanowires in the context of her wider practice and the politics of materiality she has been articulating in recent work, especially her commission for Artangel, Lethality and Vulnerability; her work for Liverpool Biennial 2021, and her solo show Megaflora at Large Glass, London (all 2021).

To book a ticket visit Arnolfini’s box office here.

Find further details of Channer’s work at www.alicechanner.com.

Image credit:  Lethality and Vulnerability by Alice Channer, 2021.  Photo Thierry Bal

06 | 09 | 2021

Kekee Manzil - House of Art

Join me on Sunday 19 September to watch the premier of this wonderful feature documentary that interweaves personal testimony with rare historical and 8mm family archive to tell the story of how a modern art movement was born alongside the new nation of India. 

If you are interested in modern Indian art, or in India’s recent cultural history and its impact on the city once known as Bombay, then this is a film for you.  With contributions from Salman Rushdie and Anish Kapoor and music by Talvin Singh.

Following the film there will be an opportunity to take part in a Q&A with Producer Behroze Ghandy, Director/Editor Dilesh Korya and Executive producer Michael Poole.  To book tickets, go to the Arnolfini website here.

15 | 06 | 2021

Is the future of public art online?

Join us on Thursday 17 June at midday for this fourth and final event in the series Assembly, an online learning and development programme for curators, producers and public art practitioners that explore issues and good practice in relation to the expanded field of public art.

We’ve spent the last year interacting with the world through our screens. Is this the point at which ‘public art’ becomes something that is primarily experienced through the digital world, rather than in the ‘physical’ world?

Has the non-hierarchical, expansive world of the internet overtaken the increasingly privatised and co-opted world of the ‘public realm’? Can public art commissioning build on this expanded form of public space?

Is the future of public art online? is chaired by Siddarth Khajuria, Senior Producer at Barbican. Speakers include Soledad Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Executive Producer at st_age (TBA21), and Penny Rafferty, member, and co-founder of Black Swan DAO.

All Assembly events will take place in The Hall, UP Projects’ digital participation space.  Sign up here.

Assembly has been developed by UP Projects in collaboration with Public Art Network UK (PAN) and is generously supported by The Art Fund. The programme has been put together by Jes Fernie, Elisabeth Del Prete, Theresa Bergne and Emma Underhill.