A Place For Words: BS1

What happened?

In April 2008, UrbanWords worked with artist Neville Gabie, and public art commissioners InSite Arts, to commission the novelist Donna Daley-Clarke to respond to the creation of Cabot Circus, a new retail centre in Bristol. Donna was one of seven artists working on the BS1 programme, which complemented Neville Gabie's three year residency on the Cabot Circus site.

Donna's brief was to explore the stories of the hundreds of construction workers (mainly men, hailing from all over the globe) involved in creating the shopping centre, stories that may well have been lost or overlooked once the centre had opened and the workers had moved on.

Donna wrote three stories as a result of her residency: Dirt, Stone and Glass, which were published as a collection, and formed part of the final BS1 publication. The booklet of stories was given away free, and is archived in the city library. Donna also created texts, which were combined with projected images of site construction workers, for the BS1 exhibition in central Bristol in October 2008.

Talking about her residency, Donna said:

I saw processes and machinery that I had no knowledge of and weeks or months later I had a series of light bulb moments as I realized what I had seen then. I saw lots of absences: no floors or walls or ceilings. There were wires beneath my feet and brightly coloured cables running up poles.

I met many people formally in meeting rooms and informally as Neville grabbed men in high-vis jackets walking past the open door of Costa Coffee. I talked to people on their lunch breaks. I climbed ladders in the rain to get people's stories.

None of the stories I eventually emerged with belong to any one person I spoke to, but none of the stories would have been possible without the input of the many people who gave up their time and shared something of their journeys.

Project Gallery

BS1

Booklets on Crate: Copies of Donna's stories were given away free at the BS1 exhibition

BS1

Projection: Donna's texts were combined with video portraits of site-construction workers

What made it work?

  • Donna was supported by Neville Gabie, who had been working on the Cabot Circus site for two years before her commission began. He had developed positive relationships with workers which Donna could utilise.
  • Donna's work was part of a larger project, and so gained more impact through the group exhibition in central Bristol and the project publication.
  • The booklet of Donna's work was produced to a high quality and given away free to exhibition visitors which broadened the audience for the project. The stories were also published online and archived by Bristol libraries

Further information and links:

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