A Place For Words: Blythscopes
What happened?
Blythscopes was Ira Lightman's response to an open tender for a piece of temporary public art in Blyth, Northumberland. In 2008, Blyth market square was being redeveloped, with a new permanent work of public art, Hyperscope, by Simon Watkinson. Artists were asked to propose temporary projects for the hoardings around the market square during the redevelopment. Ira Lightman asked local people to “tell me two good things about Blyth”, in order to make Blythscopes: visual poems in which two sentences cross over on a common word, a word that usually has a different meaning in each sentence. These were printed onto binocular-shape artworks, and fixed to the hoardings for 3 months. Banners were also made, featuring almost all the text gathered from local people surrounding a graphic representation of a Blythscope poem. These banners were then hung in Keel Row Shopping Centre in Blyth.
Project Gallery
Blythscopes mounted on market square hoardings. photo: Jason Thompson
Ira Lightman with the Blythscopes mounted on market square hoardings. photo: Jason Thompson
Temporary banner in Keel Row Shopping Centre. Photo: Ira Lightman
What made it work?
- Blyth Valley council's arts officer Helen Moore had excellent existing contacts and relationships with a number of local groups, so it was easy to run workshops with groups who were vocal, and ready to give it a try.
- The banners were an unexpected offshoot from the original work for the hoardings. Ira was often sending ideas back and forward to Helen Moore in a general good conversation about public art, so the idea of the banners came as much from Helen seeing the potential in one of Ira's stray thoughts.
- The banners were initially temporary, but the people voted for them to stay.
