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Our stretch target will show that we really are funded by the people, and will enabl...
Sustainable Public Art Installation for Coventry
Coventry, West Midlands, United Kingdom
Aim
Help make this community-led sustainable public art installation happen
Become part of this new, ground-breaking public art installation. Grown and sculpted by hand from the earth, it will be created and eroded in public in the summer of 2022.
Please help us raise £10,000. Your generous contributions will fund our community activities, so we can engage with as many people as possible, support fair pay to artists and help bring our Indian artist to the UK.
Join making workshops, experience performances and visit this spectacular temporary installation. There are loads of rewards from sculpture, to bread and chapati-making workshops, to artisan flour, mugs and t-towels (Scroll to the end to see images of these!). More importantly, you'll become part of this art work's lifecycle and story.
“This programme is creative, innovative and joyful. Within the current context and our lived reality, the proposed activity is what is needed. It will help to bring communities and different generations together. The positive energy that it will create will help in the process of healing, redressing feelings of isolation experienced by many during the pandemic. And, with hope, help people, families and groups become active physically and mentally.”
Deepak Naik MBE, Together in Action Trust, Coventry
Join Us!
- We believe art is for everyone and we're passionate about creating new ways to experience it that appeal to more people.
- We're working with a group of incredible lead artists from India and the UK to produce a world-class artwork in the heart of Coventry and Warwickshire.
- The public are invited to participate in the shared experience of learning, growing, building and letting go of this new installation. We want you to become part of the team, join workshops and get your hands dirty with clay and straw. There's lots of different ways to participate for all ages. Get in touch.
- This installation turns everything you think you know about sculpture on its head.
- Pangaea's directors passionately believe in the importance of this project. They have given the majority of their time for free to make it happen.
Image: Clay and Straw Workshop at Stoke Heath Primary School, Nov 2021
How Much Do We Need?
Your donations will help us to raise £10,000. This will be added to by grants and sponsorship.
Your money will fund our community activities, so we can engage with as many people as possible, support fair pay to artists and help bring our Indian artist to the UK.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank those that have supported the project to get it to this point: Heritage Lottery Fund and Lottery Players, Arts Council England, British Council and Coventry City of Culture.
More About Pangaea Sculptors' Centre
Pangaea is an artist and female-led arts organisation that was set up in 2013 as a not-for-profit community interest company. The platform supports contemporary sculptors and fosters excellence in craft skills. Pangaea facilitates the production of innovative sculpture through technical and fabrication support to artists. It delivers critical, education and cultural programming around contemporary sculptural practice.
www.pangaeasculptorscentre.com
Social media @pangaeacentre
Summary
As the production and origins of goods become increasingly complex and remote, this project addresses a wish to return to our roots and participate in the making of things. Hand Earth Gesture Return is made from earth, straw and water – natural, locally sourced and sustainable materials. It has been designed, and made for, and with, communities in Coventry and Warwickshire. We will be bringing the materials to different community groups to be handled, modelled and manipulated. They will work alongside collaborating artists based in the UK and India to create this project. The design reconnects us to our physical world and, through shared material understanding, explores existing connections between cultures.
This is a new approach to public art that turns the creation and erosion process into a series of performative events that the public can witness or participate in. You’ll get to see what usually goes on behind the scenes and in artists' studios as the artwork is made in public over time. Join making workshops and performances, visit temporary installations and follow the story of transformation online.
Image: Kumartuli artisans in Kolkata building the armatures for clay idols for Durga Puja.
The Story so Far
Five artists based in the UK and India have been invited to work with the people of Coventry and Warwickshire to create this temporary public sculpture. Inspired by the use of earth, water and straw around the world, from British cob and thatching, via Egyptian mudbrick, Latin American quincha, African rammed earth - and Kolkata's Durga Puja Hindu Festival. The artwork celebrates the diversity of our community by exploring this common material understanding and cross-cultural connections to ritual, harvest, lifecycle and transformation.
Since March 2020 curators Nandita Palchoudhuri (IN) and Lucy Tomlins (UK), alongside the artists, have been working with local community groups, national and international collaborators and supporters to develop this. Taking us from Coventry to Kolkata and back, the design is a product of diverse inputs and influences, from people, places, cities and nature.
Lead Artists:
Rachael Champion (USA/UK)
Dolon Kundu (IN)
Amy & Oliver Thomas-Irvine (UK)
Jim Woodall (UK)
and the Female potters of Maarttikee, Burdwan, West Bengal (IN).
Hand Gestures
The clay and straw sculptures are to be based on the concept of hand gestures.
“As primary instruments of the creative, the hands of the homo-faber imitate the mythic shaping of matter into discriminated being by deities who chisel, mold, sculpt, weave and forge creation. Hands signify the sovereign, word- creating reach of consciousness; they embody effectiveness, industry, adaption, invention, self-expression and the possession of a will for creative and destructive ends."
[The Book of Symbols]
Hands and contact are increasingly prevalent as we emerge from a pandemic, where touch is apparently cancelled and hands are relentlessly lathered in alcohol to rid virus molecules and bacteria. The symbolic nature of the hand is now covering new societal ground, the openness of unconscious action and or interpretation has now shifted focus to rid a surface. Both a universal and personal symbol, hands convey meaning that penetrates barriers of gender, age or race. [For further images information please see our second update post.]
The Public
We plan to involve up to 500 participants, run 140 creative and educational training sessions, employ artists for over 300 days and keep a public sculpture alive and eroding for 28 days. We have been told that Coventry City of Culture have had up to 500 a day come to events at the Canal Basin so by a conservative estimate 9,400 visitors will be part of this project... and you can be one of the first!
Image: Members of the Home School Network visited our wheat field to learn about nature, art, history and science.
We are involving over 25 cultural oganisations and community groups, many in and around Foleshill, Coventry. This includes:
Faith: Gurdwara Guru Nanak Prakash (GNP); Krishna Mandhir Temple; Cambridge Street Masjid and more.
Health: Dementia sufferers; The Pod mental-health charity; Cha Da Cup Women's group; Chat Central.
Education: Stoke Heath Primary School; Coventry College; Coventry University; Community College, Ramgarhia Gurdwara.
And across Coventry and Warwickshire:
Young people and their carers from the Coventry and Warwickshire Homeschool Network; BamBah Musicals; Africa Performing Art UK; Sitting Rooms of Culture; Hatton Farm; Warwickshire Rural Hub; National Farmers Union; Coventry City of Culture; Canal and River Trust; Imagineer Productions; Media Mania; Daimler Samba Drummers; Kadence Music; SACRE; Together in Action Trust (Coventry Sacred Space Initiative).
And in India:
Kolkata Centre for Creativity; Maarttikee Potters Consortium of Berdwan, West Bengal.
*We’re encouraging as many people from the local community as possible to get involved; to get making with clay and straw, join performances, learn new skills, have fun and make new connections. Please get in touch if you would like to get involved.*
Images: Draft design proposal and proposed location on Coventry Canal Basin
Each artist is working with one or more of the community groups. These members of different but locally connected communities will be part of designing and making a world class public artwork inspires by hand gestures.
This collaboration will take place over three months and includes practical workshops, discussion groups, performances... and more. The final sculptures will be brought into position with a ceremonial drumming performance with 50 locally-based drummers (you can be part of this, get in touch!) - a fusion of different world rhythm styles including from Africa, South America, India and the UK, led by five incredible musicians Parmjeet Bamrah, Mahandra Patel, Annabel Febles, Abraham Paddy Tetteh and Luke Weaver.
This will mark the completion of the sculptures as they are then given up to water, slowly eroding to reveal their inner-workings before their inevitable collapse and return to the earth.
[Reference image: Durga Puja Hooghly River submersion, Kolkata.]
The sculptures will be eroded with water until we are left with clay, straw and water once again. We invite you to support this crowd funder and be part of the art work's next cycle. You can come to make your own small sculpture from the cob materials. Or our creative team will hand make one for you and post it it you.
All excess materials will be be reused, recycled and returned to the supply chain or nature.
Image: Sculpting Hands Workshop - Live-streamed between Daimler Powerhouse, Coventry and Kolkata Centre for Creativity, Kolkata.
Image: Visualisation of erosion process
Image: The Rick; A temporary outdoor installation at Hatton Farm made of wheat straw, which takes inspiration from traditional thatched ricks.
To find out more about the project see our website: pangaeasculptorscentre.com
We need your support to make this happen and complete the story.....
Rewards
1. Organic cotton screen-printed tote bag; 2. Jess Mooney bread-making workshop and book, www.breadforlife.org.uk. 3. 1kg wholemeal flour locally grown, traditionally harvested and hand-threshed.
Below: T-towel and mug designs by Hand Earth Gesture Return lead artists.
*Indicative concept images.
This project successfully funded on 31st December 2021