"Perceptions, people, place, the art of regeneration" took place on 22nd and 23rd March 2006, and was hosted by Aberdeenshire Arts, in
Peterhead, Scotland.
As a continuation of our work on Peterhead regeneration as part of PROJECT
, we conceived the conference to bring artists, councilors, commissioners, local residents, architects, specialists in the field of public
arts, planners and council workers, to think, talk and see examples of the role of the artist as an essential actor in the fabric of the
built environment; looking at the wider role of the artist as part of a process, rather than producer of a product, through its participation
in the debate. This role is increasingly important for the art scene and for the development of a creative thinking about the build
environment in cities of every scale.
The main speakers were:
Chaired by Alastair Snow, Scheme Manager of PROJECT
Sans façon, ourselves, presenting our involvement in Peterhead over the previous year and the idea behind the bringing about of the conference
Charlie McKeith,
from Research Design Architecture Ltd
, presented the importance of the artist as a parallel thinker in the creative team, bringing an invisible link between the range of partners
and bringing another scale to the projects.
Jonathan Banks, ex Senior Public Art Officer, Bristol City Council and new Chief Executive for
Ixia (National and Independent think tank for public art practice),
presented Bristol City Council's Public Art Policy and Strategy, successfully securing integral roles for artists throughout the city
involving local people, public sector organisations and private sector developers to promote city and neighbourhood identity.
Richard Wentworth,
British artist, presented his approach and the validity of renewing our awareness of the everyday, looking at objects, disrupted and
subverted, allowing the thousands of tiny gestures and things that constitute the world around us to be read in new and unexpected ways.
Michael Schwarze-Rodrian presented the Emscher Landschaftspark 2010
, a 15-year economic masterplan of integrated and regional park development of the Ruhr Valley, Germany s declining industrial belt. He also
presented the involvement of artists for most aspects of the physical regeneration from 1989, through temporary interventions and permanent
works and collaborations with architects, landscape architects and planners, focused on changing the image of this run down area and
requalify the identity.
Three artists were commissioned as part of this conference, to create temporary intervention in Peterhead:
Jean Bei-Ning, Steven Healy and Ginny Hutchinson.
We also created a map to give an insight into some of the town's identity:
Peterhead's Hearsays