Big Art Project
partners
The Big Art Project is an ambitious public art commissioning initiative, instigated by Channel 4. It aims to inspire and create new public art and is supported by Arts Council England and The Art Fund.
We are very proud to be initiating a project with the ambition and scale of the Channel 4 Big Art Project.
Channel 4 Arts has a long history of engaging the public in the creative process. With this project, we want to inspire people to create art for their communities and to regenerate public spaces with art. We want them to turn a space into a place.
The series will explore the value of art in our everyday lives. How does it improve our journey to work or to school? Why is it important to the environment? What can it say about how we feel about the space that surrounds us; the space we live in?
The purpose of the series is to empower people to create art for their communities by explaining the practical and creative process. How do you succeed with a planning application? How do you get support from the local community? How do you raise the money? And, most important, how do you talk about art in an all-inclusive language as well as making sure that you get what you want?
The series will unravel this process through advice and interviews with experts, working with well-known and emerging artists, curators, fund-raisers and planners.
Jan Younghusband, Commissioning Editor, Arts, Channel 4 Television
Arts Council England works to get great art to more people.
We champion, develop and invest in artistic experiences that enrich people’s lives – experiences that inspire us, bring us together and teach us about ourselves and the world around us. We create opportunities for people to better understand and connect with art as audiences or participants.
We believe art and culture should be at the heart of regeneration. Art touches everyone: it can create a sense of belonging and pride in the places where we live and improve our quality of life, which is why Arts Council England is proud to fund The Big Art Project.
We hope the Project’s use of digital technology, including the award winning Big Art Mob, will involve and excite people from all walks of life, especially those who have never really thought about art in public places.
Through the television series and the wider project, we can explain how this kind of art is commissioned, where to find it and what it can achieve. We hope it will inspire people to become involved in creating more art in public places across the country.
As the national development agency for the arts in England we will, between 2008 and 2011, invest £1.6 billion of public money from the government and the National Lottery to create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country.
For more information, visit: www.artscouncil.org.uk/bigartproject
As the UK's leading independent art charity The Art Fund secures works of art for the public to enjoy and believes that everyone should have the opportunity to experience great art at first hand.
We are thrilled to be one of the lead funders of the works of art for The Big Art Project – a unique initiative that will bring into being new works of real quality from a very impressive list of contemporary artists – a natural extension to the work we already do.
As well as leaving a legacy of excellent art we are committed to the project's aim of engaging the public and creating debates surrounding contemporary public art and its role. It promises to revealed much about the commissioning process and offer a behind-the-scenes look at the ambitions of the local communities involved.
Since we began in 1903, The Art Fund has helped to secure over 860,000 works of art, from priceless masterpieces which were under threat of being sold abroad like Turner’s Blue Rigi to contemporary commissions such as James Turrell's Deer Shelter.
At a time when the money available for public art collections to acquire new works of art is in decline, The Art Fund has an increasingly vital role to play. 80,000 members of the public fund our work through our membership scheme, giving us the independence from government or the Lottery to speak out about funding and policy issues. In return, they receive free or reduced-price admission to many museums and galleries in the UK. This is not the only reason they join: they support us because they love art.
To find out more or join the Art Fund visit www.artfund.org
Big Art Project also received generous support from Arts and Business
