Community Art Project
As a result of the successful WDI consultation and master planning process at Winchburgh, West Lothian Council's Arts unit submitted a proposal for a Visionary Award from PROJECT (a nationally funded scheme jointly supported by CABE and Arts and Development) using Winchburgh FUTURE as the case project. PROJECT would support the engagement of an artist to work as an integral member of a design team involved in the Winchburgh FUTURE expansion.
WDI and Winchburgh FUTURE were successful in the submission and are one of only two arts projects funded by PROJECT in Scotland. The artist initiative has been funded jointly by CALA and a £15,000 Visionary Award from PROJECT — engaging artists in the built environment.
The aim of the community art project was to find an artist to work in association with the WDI and West Lothian Council (WLC) to research and produce a project that explores the connections between community interests and the developing Master Plan for Winchburgh.
The timing of this work could not be better. It is an excellent opportunity for an artist to be engaged and it is expected that a body of work will be produced that will inform further detailed design development at Winchburgh. The artist's responsibility in the process is to develop greater awareness of the cultural identity of Winchburgh and evolve the cultural identity of the Master Plan design concepts in relation to their increased awareness from the community consultation.
The concept of local distinctiveness is a topic that forms a central tenet to the commission. It is expected that the artist will utilise his skill to draw focus to the pertinent aspects relating to the culture and identity of Winchburgh to inject genuine local distinctiveness into the design development process. The artist comes into the partnership not as a facilitator but with a unique set of skills to create artistic design that is practical, sensitive and of aesthetic value.
An outcome of the project will be the creation of an art intervention/ project. This will be developed to explore the role of local distinctiveness within the community context and will form a vehicle (along with other inputs) to explore issues with the design team. It is hoped that he will be able to reveal characteristics and issues within the master planning process that need to be addressed and integrated into the design development process.
Peter McCaughey is the artist that has been selected to work in association with WDI and WLC. Peter will work as a member of the design team, contributing to the overall concept, with the capacity to influence everything from individual buildings to planning of public space. He will also work on a specific project to involve the existing Winchburgh community in defining the identity — history, character and social fabric — of the town. Peter is an established artist, with a broad range of practice, utilising film, projection, book-works, and architectural interventions to explore memory and landscape. He teaches in the department of Sculpture and Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art, and has recently completed a series of permanent public works at the Riverside in Raploch, Stirling.
Master Planners EDAW AECOM added, “We are delighted to welcome Peter into the team. This is a tremendously exciting arts and community collaboration project that will continue to involve the existing community in the plans for their future. As the Master Plan has evolved so far, the local history and character has been a central feature to the future proposals and Peter’s appointment will further ensure that Winchburgh’s history becomes part of its future. Designing better places and expanding existing communities is a great responsibility and one that we at EDAW take very seriously. People, is what this is all about. As one of Scotland’s most important new settlement projects, this kind of project presents a tremendous opportunity to get local people thinking in new ways about the future plans and to bring their ideas and thoughts into the design process.”
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