Big Art Project sails into choppy waters in a small seaside town

Mar 26 2008 by Rin Simpson, Western Mail

AN avant-garde artwork aims to help regenerate a quiet Welsh town’s quayside.

It will feature 127 flickering buoys and play a role in a new TV documentary.

But residents are taking on the £600,000 blueprint amid fears it will disrupt river life.

Cardigan, population 4,000, has been chosen as one of seven sites across the UK to receive a slice of a £3m grant to build artwork on wasteland.

The Big Art Project, which aims to regenerate neglected areas of local communities, is a collaboration between Arts Council England, the Art Fund and Channel Four, which will be making a documentary on the project.

But in Cardigan, the £600,000 plan to regenerate the estuary shoreline with an art installation comprising 127 computerised buoys, has met opposition.

The buoys, the work of Mexican electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, would be located at Prince Charles Quay.

Not only would they light up, but they would play messages recorded by passers-by, who would be able to access the buoys from the quay during high tides.

But residents are concerned that:

The flashing lights would frighten wildlife;

The buoys would not leave room for boats on the river;

Vandals might record obscene messages.

At a public consultation in Cardigan, one audience member said, “It’s in the most stupid place. The river is a navigation nightmare at the best of times without this.”

Another local resident, speaking to the Western Mail yesterday, said, “The main problem for me is simply that the way the art was proposed it will interfere with the navigability of the river and it seems fundamentally wrong that any craft should be stopped from coming up the river. I would be very concerned about navigation, regardless of any system proposed that would allow the art to be winched out of the way.”

He added, “The idea that someone can come and speak their message into one of these things, that strikes me as quite a beautiful thing. The idea of something controlled by the force of nature, in this case the tide of the river, and having that deposit of the memories and thoughts of the people of Cardigan and visitors, is a great concept. It’s the physical manifestation of that idea which is the problem.”

Addressing the meeting, Lozano-Hemmer, who is based in both Montreal and Madrid, and has had work exhibited at the Tate and New York’s Museum of Modern Art, said, “I am not an elitist artist, here to impress his project on you – but rather as an accomplice to work with you.”

In a statement yesterday Wiard Sterk, curator of the Big Art Project in Cardigan, said, “The Big Art Project is about creating public art that is chosen and commissioned by local people – with the community at its heart.

“While some sites, such as Burnley, have already come to fruition, other sites, such as Cardigan, are still being commissioned.

“The artist and the Big Art Trust are undertaking a thorough consultation and feasibility study at the site and with the local community.

“The Big Art Trust is hopeful that the practical concerns raised by residents can be resolved,” he added.