Category: News

Artist Opportunity – deadline 28 Oct

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Open Call announcement

The University  has launched an Open Call for a lead artist to deliver Wild Spaces, an 18-month commission that will take place alongside the construction of the new campus. This commission is supported by teams from @contempoaryartsociety, @bristol_uni_publicart and @bristoluni_cabot_institute. For full information about the opportunity see the Wild Spaces webpage.

Are you and artist interested in applying? Come along to find out more about this opportunity from the team who will be supporting the commission.

IN PERSON – DROP-IN
Monday 30th September
Drop-in any time between 10am – 12.30pm
Bristol Digital Futures Institute 65 Avon Street, BS2 0PZ

WEBINAR
Tuesday 1st October
10am – 10.45 am
Join us online to hear about this opportunity and ask your questions.
To sign up for this event please visit the Wild Spaces page on this website ( link above).

Or for further info email:

public-art@bristol.ac.uk

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Artist Opportunity

Posted on by martha.crean

Lead Artist sought for Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus – Wild Spaces public art commission.

We have just launched an exciting opportunity for an artist to deliver a participatory programme and temporary artworks that investigate the natural ecologies around the site of the new University of Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus (TQEC), next to Bristol Temple Meads Station.

Wild Spaces is an eighteen-month commission that will take place alongside the construction of the new campus. It will focus on TQEC’s access to the waterfront as a platform for examining the bigger picture of wild spaces across the city.

We are looking for an artist who will find imaginative ways to create a dialogue between people and place, providing new perspectives on the site’s relationship with water and the natural landscape.

Full details, Artist Brief and details on how to apply are available here

This is one of three major new public art commissions that will be delivered with Contemporary Art Society *Consultancy, as the University of Bristol work towards the opening of the TQEC in 2026. The commissions aim to spark curiosity and imagination and help create a place where people feel welcomed.

Public Art on Instagram

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Keep up to date and keep in touch with the University’s public art team! Follow us on the new public art Instagram account @bristol_uni_publicart

We’ll be sharing the latest on the exciting new programme of art commissions being delivered across Bristol with the Contemporary Art Society. Find out about the artists we’re working with  and how you can get involved.

We’ll also be using Instagram as a platform to share highlights from the public art collection, the University’s public realm and from the many different projects that bring artists together with the University and the city.

We’d love to hear your comments and suggestions!

 

 

The Guangzhou Garden

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Guangzhou Garden Photo Credit Alistair Thorpe, Grant Associates.

For the first time a Chelsea Flower Show Garden has been rebuilt at the University of Bristol and its location at the Botanic Garden makes it accessible for everyone and a valuable addition to the University and the citizens of Bristol.

This exciting new garden first appeared at the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show in 2021. It was created for Guangzhou Forestry and Parks Municipality, and designed by Peter Chmiel and Chin Chen, from Grant Associates, Bath. The sculptural filigree towers were made by Xylotec Advanced Timber Structures, Bristol.

The theme of the garden is sustainable ‘landscape cities’, developed over many years for an ecological approach to managing natural resources and using this approach in a large modern city. The towers are made of laminated mōsō bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis). This fast-growing, sustainably sourced bamboo is more straightforward to recycle than typical construction materials. The theme, idea and the care in planting attracted the attention of the judges and the garden won a gold medal and won the coveted ‘Best in Show Award’.

After the Chelsea Flower Show the garden was donated by the Guangzhou Forestry and Parks Municipality to the citizens of Bristol. Bristol and Guangzhou have been sister cities since 2001. The Guangzhou Garden has been reimagined, rebuilt and replanted at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden.

Directions to the University of Bristol Botanic Garden

If travelling by car, the Botanic Garden is via Stoke Park Road. Park locally or in Churchill Hall car park BS9 1JG. Blue Badge holders park onsite in walled garden car park.

Arriving by bus; alight at Downleaze (Bus 4) and walk down Stoke Road turn right into Stoke Park Road, the Botanic Garden is on the right opposite Churchill Hall.

Arriving via Stoke Bishop Bus Hub (Bus U1); walk up hill towards Wills Hall and follow signs for Churchill Hall.

The Art of the Beacon – Artist’s Talk

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The Art of the Beacon Field Arts Projects
** Free tickets for University of Bristol students **
 
To claim the code for your free ticket, email: info@fieldartprojects.com

 

Bristol City Centre Culture & Events Programme

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PUBLIC by Ockham’s Razor presented by Handstand Arts in Broadmead, July 2023.<br /> © Lisa Whiting / Bristol City Council<br />
 

 

Community Fellowships Opportunity – From the Personal to the Planetary

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Personal to Planetary

The Brigstow Institute and Cabot Institute for the Environment’s new Personal to the Planetary (P2P) Community Fellowships will bring together eight talented environmental actors, drawn from researchers, community groups, the voluntary sector, individuals or artists from a variety of professions and disciplines for a deep and sustained engagement around the climate emergency, and discussions about how voices usually absent from these debates can be brought to the fore. 

These P2P Community Fellowships each provide £5,000 to cover an individual’s time only (VAT inclusive). Additional resources will be made available for events and to support the group over the duration of the P2P Community Fellowship.

  • Deadline: 10:00am, 19th February 2024
  • Funding available: £5,000 per fellowship (VAT inclusive)
  • Number of fellowships available: a total of eight P2P Community Fellowships positions (four academic fellowships drawn from the University of Bristol only, four fellowships for those beyond the university)
  • Timescale of fellowships: fellowships begin June 2024 for 10 months with some flexibility.

View full info here

 

 

The Bristol Wayzgoose Print Fair

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The Bristol Wayzgoose

Work from the University of Bristol’s Bristol Common Press will feature at the Bristol Wayzgoose print fair this weekend.  Letter press prints, posters, books and cards for sale.

Saturday 2 December
Open 11am to 5pm

Centrespace Studios
6 Leonard Lane
Bristol BS1 1EA
(look out for the lane on Corn Street next to Cosy Club)

Letterpress folk:
Bristol Common Press
Carl Middleton
David Armes, Red Plate Press
Bristol Letterpress Collective
Pat Randle, Nomad Letterpress
Sue McLaren, Verso Press
Princetown Press
Tim Jollands
Angie Butler
Sheena Vallely

Bristol Common Press is a working historical print shop located at the University of Bristol, founded in 2021. It is dedicated to exploring the historical practices and global cultures of print. We are a research and teaching facility open to the whole university, and colleagues based in the Faculty of Arts conduct practice-led teaching and research using our historical equipment. You can find more information on BCP here.

Wayzgoose

Bristol City Council Originators Fund open for applications

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The Anarchist Mobile Library by Tessa Bide Production. Copyright: Craig Fuller

The Originators Fund is one of the three funds that make up Bristol City Council’s Cultural Investment Programme; the way Bristol City Council distributes public money to support arts and culture across the city.

The fund will offers grants of £500 to £5,000 to Bristol-based individuals or organisations to run events, arts, and cultural activities between May 2024 and April 2025.

Arts Development and Events Officers are offering in person and online opportunities to find out more. Booking information as follows:

Information sessions in person at Mshed on Monday 13 November at 2pm and 5pm.

Online 1-1 support sessions with officers are available from 20 November.

Visit the council website for information and to apply to the Originators fund.

Applications close on Friday 15 December 2023.

Autumn Art Lectures 2023

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Gandhi at Sea (Autumn Art Lecture)

Art and the City: Bristol at 650

The Autumn Art Lecture series is an annual series of public events, hosted by the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Arts with support from the Centre for Black Humanities and Bristol Ideas.

This year the lectures will focus on some of the historical, cultural and conceptual spaces of Bristol. The series coincides with Bristol 650 – the year-long celebration that marks the anniversary of the 1373 royal charter – and will be an opportunity not just to talk about Bristol and its (in)visible histories, but also to step into the city itself.

Events will be hosted in venues that span Bristol – from the Cathedral at its heart on College Green, to Spike Island in the midst of the river that defines the city’s cosmopolitan past and present. Speakers include curators, artists, and academics, who together will take us on a journey through both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of the city’s history, including its place in the wider world.

For the full series listing and more information on each event, please follow this link.

Aardman and Upfest at Bristol Dental School

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Denticle, Bristol Dental School

The University of Bristol’s new, purpose-designed Dental School officially opened on Friday 8 September

The design of the building includes public art featuring bespoke characters The Denticles, created by Gav Strange, Director & Designer at Aardman, the Academy Award®-winning animation studio based in Bristol. These take the form of five sculptures at the front of the building as well as character cushions for the children’s waiting area.

Working with Upfest,  local artist Bex Glover designed and painted two murals to incorporate the toothy characters – one for the main reception area which features landmarks from all over Bristol and one for the children’s waiting area with animals, plants, and flowers local to the area.

The £36 million facilities are located at the University’s new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus and will provide the very latest clinical training for the education of dentists, hygienists and therapists, dental nurses, and wider dental team.

Spanning 7,300 square metres at 1 Trinity Quay, Avon Street, the Dental School will enable the University to increase the number of available student places by around 25 percent, with Bristol dental students contributing even more significantly to the local and national dental workforce. The refurbishment of the building has been led by construction company Kier Group. More information on the new Dental School

Dental School Students Sept 2023

Another Wave is Possible sculpture on campus

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Waves of Change

Designed to raise awareness of the devastating impacts of ocean plastics Another Wave is Possible, by Wren Miller, will be based outside the entrance to the University of Bristol’s Royal Fort Gardens throughout September.

The eye-catching 4m high and 6m long sculpture highlights the scale of littering in Bristol, having been made with 90kg of waste, equivalent to the volume of litter dropped on Baldwin Street on one busy Friday night.

Bristol residents may well already be familiar with the artwork, which has previously been on display on a floating pontoon in Bristol Harbour.

Artist Wren Miller said: “I choose to work with these materials because they tell a story of our convenience-driven, throw-away culture. When we cast away a plastic drink bottle or a crisp packet, we instantly forget about it, but these things could eventually dissolve into microplastics – plastic pollution. What gets into the water courses, flows out to sea. It’s not visible to us on land, but we are affecting wildlife, choking our seas and cutting off an important source of the world’s oxygen supply.

“The students at the University of Bristol are from across the globe, coming from so many backgrounds. But we all share one common truth: humanity is the biggest threat to this planet’s health and if we continue as we are currently, we will have blown it. I hope that the sculpture will inspire the university’s students to start conversations, which can lead to change.”

Further Information here

 

Virtual museum showcases University’s cultural collections

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Waves of Change

The University has launched a virtual museum! The Uncertain Space will host a programme of unique exhibitions and is a new way to experience artefacts from the University’s cultural collections.

How to visit

A smartphone, web browser or Virtual Reality headset can all act as windows onto the museum. The easiest way to visit is to click here.

If you want to use a VR headset, you can access the Uncertain Space by visiting the Theatre Collection or the University Special Collections in person, where VR headsets are available for anyone to reserve.

University staff and students can also book out a Quest 2 VR headset from the library, please email us to book.

Current Exhibition

The first exhibition Secret Gardens: Exploring pathways through our collections was curated by a group of secondary students from across Bristol, who worked in partnership with curators and exhibition designers to explore the University’s collections during a 12 month project.

Secret Gardens brings together public artworks and artefacts from the Theatre Collection, Special Collections and Earth Sciences amongst others.

 

 

Colombia Week 20 – 24 March 2023

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Bringing Memories in from the Margins 20-24 March

FREE

A week of theatre, music, photography, film, cookery and conversation to share and celebrate the creative memory work produced by MEMPAZ Colombian partners. Listen to unheard, first-person stories and experiences of the armed conflict in Colombia, and the ways Colombians are re-writing their country’s history with their courage and their creativity.

All events are free (booking advised) and public, with simultaneous interpreting into both Spanish and English. Full listing here https://MEMPAZ.eventbrite.com

Using theatre, music, photography, film, cookery and conversation, grassroots activists in Colombia working in some of the most geographically- and socially-marginalized parts of the country are using human creativity to confront and work through the horrors of warfare and its impact on millions of Colombians.

This is MEMPAZ (MEMories and PAZ, meaning Peace in Spanish), is a collaboration between grassroots groups working towards a more peaceful, safer world by bringing the voices of ordinary people from the margins and into the centre of history.

MEMPAZ – Bringing Memories in from the Margins: Inclusive Transitional Justice and Creative Memory Processes for Reconciliation in Colombia is a collaboration between the Colectivo de Comunicación Arhuaco Busintama (Arhuaco Communications Collective), Rodeémos el Diálogo (Embrace Dialogue), Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres (Women’s Peaceful Way), MUMIDAVI (Colombian NGO), Universidad Nacional de Colombia (National University of Colombia) and the University of Bristol.