Vote now for the Loughborough University Enterprise Awards 2013: 'Cultural Impact award - The social benefits of public art'
Date uploaded: April 3, 2013
John Atkin and Mel Jordan have been nominated for the Loughborough University Enterprise Cultural Impact Award 2013 - for 'The social benefits of public art'. The winner is decided by public vote. For more information and to cast your vote, read on...
Readers in Fine Art at Loughborough University – John Atkin and Mel Jordan – have long been preoccupied with the relevance and importance of public art in relation to public engagement and urban regeneration.
Over the years, this interest has led to their engagement in a variety of projects exploring art’s social and cultural impact, including commissions from Kent County Council; New Art Gallery, Walsall; the Collective Art Gallery, Edinburgh; and the Liverpool Biennale.
These projects have not just been about creating public art, they have also explored new models of participatory art practice – engaging the public in the decision-making process as well as the physical production of the artwork.
John Atkin was Lead Artist in the interdisciplinary design team that steerednotaroundabout, Ashford’s £15m award-winning shared space urban regeneration project. Residents and accessibility groups worked alongside the artists, architects and highway engineers involved to ensure that the innovative design met local needs.
Mel Jordan’s work on Futurology: The Black Country 2024 explored the relationship between socially engaged art practice and culture-led regeneration. The project operated as a forum, teaming artists with young people to examine the social, economic and political conditions of the area in order to imagine their future.
Click here to read more about the projects and to vote for public art to win the award.
