Portmarine, narrative sculpture garden

Location: Portishead, Bristol
Client Crest Nicholson
Site specific public sculpture commission:
Imaginative sculpture garden

The aim was to provide a sculpture garden using landscape with images to create a simple visual narrative connecting people with place.This would be a place of leisure and reflection; with an educational element responding to the history of the site intended to promote an initial interest and engagement with the locality: a work that celebrates a co-existence, which generates an enriching experience and dialogue across the community. The garden was designed as a contemplative pathway/walk to offer a recreation space, which would provide a sense of inspiration and narrative.

After researching the actual site's history and reflecting on the post industrial / marine heritage, the proposal for a 'history path' was selected as one which would include elements of landscaping and aspects of locality to create a recreational garden within a very large housing development.

The path, in the form of a figure of eight knot, references the nautical location and also utilises the full surface area of the garden. Large granite blocks from the harbour wall were reclaimed and positioned at junctures along the pathway. Cast bronze plaques with sources in local history, industry, and wildlife are set into these. In finding fragments and traces belonging to the regenerated site, it is hoped a pride and a sense of local interest will be celebrated - not forgotten. This would be space to provide a new contemplative sculptural landscape whilst referencing the notion of "inherent" identity associated with the place. The implication of "inherent" meaning, and the poetics of objects and space are central issues in my own visual art practice.