Cambridge Riverside Public Art
The vision for Cambridge Riverside is a fashionable new destination in a world class city, where exceptional architecture sympathetically enhances the picturesque riverside location. As part of this high quality design, Berkeley are commissioning exemplary public artworks to be integrated within Cambridge Riverside's public realm.
Berkeley have worked closely with London and Cambridge based cultural consultancy, Futurecity to create three commissions for public art. Berkeley are committed to working closely with artists, Futurecity and Cambridge City Council to produce high quality, enduring contemporary art commissions, appropriate for the site and its location within Cambridge.
The three public art commissions will be:
1: Identity - a visual art / sculptural commission to enhance a unique identity for the site.
2: Interaction - a play and seating commission for Midsummer Lawn area of public realm at Cambridge Riverside.
3: Activity - a community engagement commission for an artist to create activities for the new residents
Further to a recent public art exhibition held at Cambridge Riverside on 15th September 2011, the winning artists selected to display their work are: Lucy Skaer and James Hopkins
Lucy Skaer has been commissioned to produce artwork around 'identity', which will be featured on the existing wall at the site entrance on Newmarket Road. Lucy Skaer comments: "I am delighted to be a winner in this competition. As an artist locally based in Cambridge, it is a great honour to have my work displayed for the local community to explore and enjoy. My design takes the form of a 'sentence' winding its way through the Cambridge Riverside site and culminating on the prominent 30ft wall. The sentence will be made up of invented characters, originally made by inking up all sides of a wooden chair and printing them in various operations. These take the place of letters, and when combined with known punctuation provide a playful reading experience, reminiscent of reading hieroglyphs."
James Hopkins has been commissioned to produce artwork around 'interaction', which will be featured in the Midsummer Lawn area of public realm at Cambridge Riverside. James Hopkins comments "My commission will create a sculpture based on playful seating areas. The seats will comprise of a distorted bench type system arranged around a mirror finished stainless steel cylinder. When the viewer looks at the distorted seating in the reflection of the cylinder, the bench will transform into an image of a chair. The arrangement of seats will embody a strange illusion as when we see our own reflections distorted in a mirror we expect everything else in our field of vision to also be distorted. This will result in the seating area standing in for a place of pondering and contemplation of self-realisation."
The public will be able to enjoy both commissions from Spring 2013 when they will be installed at Cambridge Riverside
A site plan showing where the exhibited artwork will be can be seen here, Site Plan.
