MAKING A STAND
15th of June 2023
LEEDS – YORKSHIRE, UK: Today (Thursday 15th June) commuters and visitors arriving into Leeds city centre have been greeted by an extraordinary sight. A remarkable sculptural ‘forest’ has taken root in the main public square outside Leeds railway station.
Comprising 127 seven-metre-high timber fins, this quietly powerful temporary installation entitled ‘Making A Stand’, aims to ‘disrupt’ the popular pedestrian route by creating an awe-inspiring artwork using commercially grown timber ‘borrowed’ from the construction supply chain, which can be repurposed when the work is dismantled at the end of the year.
Amidst the ongoing discourse surrounding climate protests and their impact on everyday lives, ‘Making A Stand’ is a thought-provoking artistic intervention that invites people to pause, explore and contemplate major environmental issues in a visually striking and provocative manner.
The installation is co-created by acclaimed visual artist Michael Pinsky (whose work is known for challenging the status quo on climate change and urban design), and award-winning environmental architects Studio Bark. It is one of 12 signature projects commissioned as part of LEEDS 2023’s transformational Year of Culture, and is inspired by the city’s origins as a forested area called Leodis over a thousand years ago, which gave rise to the name ‘Leeds’.
The co-creators of ‘Making A Stand’ aim to draw attention to the urgent need for the built environment industry to replace carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel with more sustainable alternatives, such as timber. The project aims to ignite a conversation surrounding material life cycles and to demonstrate that large-scale, temporary art can also be created in a sustainable way.
The timber fins, which have been ‘borrowed’ from the supply chain at the point between felling and stacking, are positioned vertically making them quite literally ‘stand up’ like a ‘stand’[1] of trees in nature. The fins work together with a webbed canopy of steel wire ropes and steel struts, acting in tension and compression to ensure minimal damage to the wood so that it can be repurposed at the end of the year, minimizing waste while maximising opportunities for carbon capture and storage.
The project uses timber felled from sustainable forests in the UK where wood is grown for use in construction. Sliced into ‘fins’ by Whitney Sawmills in Herefordshire, the final stages of fabrication took place at Stage One, a specialist fabricator based near York.
Roadsworth
Natural Cycle
Roadsworth
As part of our new arts strategy X Marks the Spot for King’s Cross we have invited Roadsworth to create a mini-city with streets, pavements and crossings, combining natural elements which can been seen in Camley Street Nature Park.
Here, children of all ages can learn how to be a confident cyclist in a safe environment. Habits learnt at young age tend to stay with us for life. If a child then chooses to use the bike not the car as their primary mode of transport the carbon savings over their lifetime can be huge.
Just over twenty years ago, street artist Peter Gibson aka Roadsworth began taking to the streets of Montreal in the early mornings, spray-painting cyclist symbols on roads to protest the lack of bike lanes and paths in the city. As the number of Roadsworth’s arrest warrants mounted, his controversial street images turned the pavement into politics rekindling the debate about the nature of public art. After narrowly evading the Canadian penal system, Roadsworth went on to use his particular quirky and humorous approach to street design across the world, working with Cirque du Soleil, Tour de France and Banksy’s Can’s Festival. His approach of blending art and activism can be seen in his collaborations with organisations such as Greenpeace and Amnesty International.
- X Marks the Spot is a five year are programme curated by Clare Philips and Michael Pinsky
- Natural Cycle is located in Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross N1
- Natural Cycle is open daily and will be in-situ until October 15th 2022
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Pinsky will be part of a cross-disciplinary team of engineers, planners and consultants. The West Bay work is part of the wider Dorset Coastal Connections portfolio of 18 projects. The portfolio is funded by the Coastal Community Fund and coordinated by the Dorset Coast Forum. The Arts Development Company is working collaboratively with Dorset Coast Forum and the individual project teams. The project will continue until Summer 2019.
Cleo Evans, Art and Environment Lead at the Arts Development Company, said:
‘It’s fantastic to have an artist of this calibre working on West Bay. His work is internationally renowned and exceptionally high quality.’
The project a covers a new central ‘Hub’, the construction of a boardwalk and viewing platform on East Beach, enhancements to the West Beach promenade and the creation of a cycle path between West Bay and Bridport.
June 18, 2017 – July 7, 2017
A series of domes containing pollution from cities around the world will be placed in the Norwegian city of Trondheim as part of an investigation by psychologists to ascertain whether art can really change people’s perception of climate change.
Five interconnected geodesic domes will contain carefully mixed recipes emulating the relative presence of ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide which pollute London, New Delhi, San Paolo and Beijing. Starting from a coastal location in Norway, the visitor will pass through increasingly polluted cells, from dry and cold locations to hot and humid.
The release of toxic gases from domestic and industrial sources both increase the rate of global warming and have a direct effect on our present-day health. In the West, in cities such as London, one in five children suffer from asthma, whilst in the developing countries such as Delhi, over half the children have stunted lung development and will never completely recover.
Whilst those in the developed world live in an environment with relatively clean air, people in countries such as China and India are being poisoned by the airborne toxins created from industries fulfilling orders from the West. The experience of walking through the pollution pods demonstrates that these worlds are interconnected and interdependent. The desire for ever cheaper goods is reflected in the ill-health of many people in world and in the ill-health of our planet as a whole. Within this installation we will be able to feel, taste and smell the toxic environments that are the norm for a huge swathe of the world’s population.
Pollution Pods has been commissioned by NTNU as part of Climart a four-year research project that examines the underlying psychological mechanisms involved in both the production and reception of visual art using these findings in an attempt to unite the natural sciences to the visual arts. The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council and is housed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway.
Pollution Pods will be shown as part of the STARMUS festival in Trondheim, Norway. The STARMUS festival is an international gathering focused on celebrating astronomy, space exploration, music and art. Scientists and astronomers including Stephen Hawking and Buzz Aldrin will be speaking as part of this festival.
Norwegian Research Council
Build With Hubs
The Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU)
Airlabs
University of East London
If you would like to attend the launch event please email here for more information.
Pollution Pods is located on Festning, 7014 Trondheim. 63°25’42.0″N 10°24’44.1″E
https://goo.gl/maps/LfDHpmG9TfN2
Opening hours
Tuesday -Saturday 12.00 – 20.00
Sunday 12.00 – 18.00
The City Speaks, a major new commission for HULL 2017, functions as a 21st century Speakers’ Corner in which open-air public speaking takes on epic proportions as spoken words are translated to text and relayed on one of the towers supporting Hull’s tidal barrier.
A steel lectern located on the quayside of Humber Dock offers a platform for members of the public to broadcast their thoughts and feelings. A hidden microphone captures their words and sends them to a data processing cloud which transcribes the phases into a scrolling dot-matrix text ascending the tidal barrier. The plinth and the tidal barrier perfectly align at each end of Humber Street, allowing the speaker to see their own speech being emitted across Hull, not though the digital screens of telephones, tablets and computers, but as an embodiment of the Hull’s architecture itself.
The Hull surge tidal barrier plays a significant role in protecting Hull from flooding, as climate change increases the number of extremely high tides. Since its construction in 1980 it has saved over a 100,000 homes. In many ways this barrier has become the gateway guarding the future of Hull, replacing Beverley Gate where, in 1642, Sir John Hotham refused Charles I entry to the city, an act of defiance widely acknowledged as the spark that ignited the English Civil War.
These principles of resistance and protection lie at the core of The City Speaks. This installation gives voice to the diverse range of ideas and opinions expressed by the people of Hull and in doing so celebrates the intellectual and political resilience of the Hullensians.
For general information about Hull UK City of Culture 2017, please contact;
Ben McKnight – ben.mcknight@hull2017.co.uk / 07718 100 793.
The City Speaks plinth is located on the intersection of Humber Dock Street and Humber Street, Hull.
Professor Roderick Watkins, Deputy Vice Chancellor will formally launch I’m Laughing at Clouds I’m Laughing at Clouds is an ensemble of nine tactile lighting columns. By touching sensors embedded in the sculpture, the passer-by can create a composition of light and sound. The lampposts are programmed to respond to the human touch recording the frequency of a person’s pulse. This data is represented through the illumination of the columns and by samples of sung heartbeats recorded from children in the neighbouring Brunswick Nursery School. I’m Laughing at Clouds has been commissioned by Anglia Ruskin University for the new Young Street Buildings. Guided tours are available on Thursday 24th of September at 4pm and 5.30pm and can be booked by emailingmiriam.berg@anglia.ac.uk or calling 01223 695060. I’m Laughing at Clouds is located in the courtyard outside Young Street Building, Cambridge CB1 2LZ.
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Making A Stand June 20,2023