May 2014, No 42
Alan Meredith picked for Public Art in Newpark
Triangulation by Alan Meredith Electric picnic, Stradbally Photo by Ste Murray
Over the last few months, a dedicated group of students, parents, artists, teachers, the new school architect and a curator have been designing and working through a selection process to appoint an artist for our Percent for Art project. The Per Cent for Art scheme is a government initiative, first introduced in 1988, whereby 1% of the cost of any publicly funded capital, infrastructural and building development can be allocated to the commissioning of a work of art. Since 1997 this scheme has been made available to all capital projects across all government departments. You might be familiar with some of the large pieces of public sculpture that appear along new sections of motorway, or in recently improved urban areas. Most of these are made possible by the Percent for Art scheme. We worked with Aisling Prior, Ireland’s leading public art curator, who led us through
the process. First we had to design a brief that we would send out to a selected long list of artists, to let them know what we were looking for. We identified the lack of pleasant, welcoming outside spaces for students as a major failing of the design of our old building, and invited the artists to consider this. Fifteen artists expressed interest in working with us, and we had the difficult task of choosing a short list of five that we would ask to come and meet us and work on a proposal for us. Martin McKenna, the school’s architect, gave a presentation on the possible outside spaces available, and how they might be used. We then had a conversation about what we needed, and about how we were an energetic and creative school community that would love to get involved with the artist and the artwork. Article continued on page 9
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